What on Earth Were They Thinking

In years gone by, Honda Racing sometimes found themselves grabbing the limelight for all the wrong reasons - after promising the Earth prior to each season but then failing to fulfil their expectations. For 2007, they are doing things very differently.

This time they are actually delivering the Earth with a radical new environment-based livery. For 2007, the RA107 will become the 'Earth Car', featuring a view of the world from outer space, as Honda bids to increase awareness of the world's environmental issues.

They are breaking Formula One's sponsorship mould and replacing the traditional 'sponsors give money in exchange for space on the car' mantra with a whole new concept. It is a brave move, and it is one that is likely to leave opinions divided among racing fans.

A few days after the plans went public it seems a majority have supported the idea and welcomed the plan to ram home the fact that the world cannot continue to pump 70 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every single day without suffering consequences.

With each passing day, the issue of climate crisis is becoming more and more important. And Honda's 'Earth Car' must be seen as another step in helping get the message across to as many people as possible - just as the Oscar-winning movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' has brought the matter into the mainstream over the last year. (Incidentally, Honda Racing showed the film to all their factory staff in special sittings earlier this year).

Yet there remain the cynics who claim that Honda are just trying to grab a corporate opportunity for their own benefit. So, is it just spin from a team that hired high-profile marketing experts 19 Management to come up with something different?

Autosport.com went along to the launch at London's Natural History Museum earlier this week to sort the facts from the fiction in Honda's plans.

Haven't Honda simply done this after failing to land a title sponsor?

No, they are adamant that is not the case at all. Although the 'Earth Car' will have no sponsor logos, it totally is wrong to state that Honda Racing does not have big sponsors like everyone else up and down the grid.

While Honda's marketing department is understood to have chased title sponsors up until a few months ago, it appears the team have been set on their environmental plans for almost 10 months now, meaning new sponsors were always going have to buy into the 'Earth Car' concept.

Team principal Nick Fry explained: "This isn't something that has been dreamt up in the last few days, few weeks or few months. The question of how we would present our F1 car was really a question that we started to work on at the beginning of last year. In fact, we had decided on this route in the late Spring and it is something that has undergone a lot of discussion, a lot of investigation and a lot of market research since then."

Fry says that his team deliberately wanted to use the opportunity given to them by the departure of former title sponsor Lucky Strike to do something different.

"The real question that was at the top of our mind was how could we engage with not only F1 fans but also Honda customers and go beyond Honda customers - those people who frankly are not very interested in F1 at all," he said.

"The environment, first of all, is something that affects everybody. It was very, very relevant to Honda, who at the time we started this journey had just bought the remainder of our team and became the 100 percent owner of our team. So it was quite natural to start thinking how to communicate Honda messages rather than sponsor messages."

But isn't getting rid of sponsors on the car going to cost Honda Racing tens of millions of pounds in lost revenue?

No, because don't imagine for a second that the team have got rid of sponsors (and anyway what price can be put on the world?). There may not be any logos on the car but that does not mean the team have got rid of their backers.

In fact, autosport.com has been told that talks are ongoing with more 'major' backers right now that could result in deals, and that the announcement of the 'Earth Car' has prompted interest from businesses keen to get involved in the concept.

What has happened is that the team have simply moved to a different business model, where what a sponsor gets for their involvement is very different from the norm.

In the past the team operated as every other outfit on the grid. A sponsor would pay a certain amount of money for certain promotional benefits - whether that was naming rights, getting their logo on the car, having corporate guests entertained at events, etc.

Under the new system, a sponsor will still pay a set amount but there will be no option to have their logo on the car. That, for potential interested parties, is the negative side of Honda's plans.

However, on the flip side, such a sponsor will now be able to use the 'Earth Car' as part of their marketing programme. So while Rayban, for example, loses a small sticker it would otherwise have had on the RA107, it will gain from the kudos of association with the 'Earth Car'.

As Fry pointed out: "A number of companies, like Rayban, Eneos, NGK, and NTN, all had contracts to say they would appear on the car specifically. And every one of those companies has said this (the environment) is a more important issue, so we are prepared to come off the car.

"So how do they get their value? They won't be on the car but they will be featured on our transporters, on our trucks, and on our overalls. All we want is the car to be the star to communicate our environmental message and our partners who support this initiative will be featured on other collateral.

"The other thing that partners of the 'Earth Car' will get is a kind of licensing model. People who participate in this scheme will have the ability to the use the image of the car in their advertising and marketing communications and so on.

"One additional feature is that with our partners we are agreeing a percentage of the revenue that will be donated to an environmental charity. People are still getting a sponsorship package, albeit a different one to the traditional."

It is a similar business model that the Olympic Games operate, where sponsors pay out for association right rather than out-and-out sponsorship. So big corporations like McDonald's become partners of the Olympics and then have the right to use the famous Olympic Games five rings logo in their marketing activities.

At the launch earlier this week, Honda confirmed that Universal Music, Gatorade and FILA had come on board to support them - and these companies will now be allowed to use the 'Earth Car' for their promotional purposes. And another added bonus for each company is that whenever they run the car's image to boast about their involvement, they will not be giving any of the team's other sponsors free advertising so can take all the glory.

So is there a chance, then, that more sponsors could come on board?

Yes exactly, and that is Fry's belief. In fact, he reckons that the sky really is the limit in terms of the number of backers that this project could bring on board.

Beyond the environmental credentials of what Honda are doing, that has to be a win-win situation - promoting environmental issues is good for all of us and if Honda Racing can make more money through it then who loses?

"We are clearly not going to talk about numbers, but we are not expecting to lose out on this," explained Fry. "The beauty of this is that we can have 1000 sponsors. Most sports teams are limited by the amount of space they have on a car, or their overalls, their team shirts, or whatever it happens to be.

"With this licensing model, and with the message we are trying to communicate, there is no reason why we shouldn't have 200 to 300 sponsors. And theoretically there is no reason why we can't have sponsors from the same market segments, so you must understand that it is very unusual for F1, it is a very different model.

"We are pretty confident that this a very positive model for the future and one which other people may wish to adopt - although not necessarily F1. We have already had some interest from other sports who have been observing what we have been talking about and have shown great interest. It is new and it has got huge potential."

You keep talking about Honda taking sponsors logos off the cars. So why do Bridgestone and Honda badges remain?

That's just regulations. Just as the 'Earth Car' must have the drivers' number and name on, so do the sport's rules require a minimum amount of car identification.

"The situation with Bridgestone is simple," said Fry. "As the series tyre supplier all the teams agreed to run a Bridgestone logo. I think ours is one of the smallest, and others have got the logo on several different places, but there is agreement from all the teams to support the tyre supplier, hence the logo.

"And the Honda H is required by the regulations, just like a road car it has to have a name on the front of it. That is something we have to have."

Are Honda Racing committed to this campaign for the long haul, or will they ditch it if a big title sponsor comes offering a hefty cheque in the future?

The real answer to that will only become clear over the next two to three years. If the business model works, and the public embrace the idea, then there is little reason to believe Honda will not carry on with the project.

Honda Racing F1 chairman Yasuhiro Wada expects it to last until the end of 2008 at the earliest - although he hopes it will go on for longer.

"This is new to us," he said. "In marketing terms it is a new challenge. I would like to see the results and the impressions from everybody, so it is not going to be a short-term project. I would like to do more than a one-year project."

And how will Honda Racing judge if it is a success?

Well, there will not come a time in the next 12 months where the world's governments declare an end to the climate crisis because global carbon emissions have been brought under control. So in terms of the campaign, there will not actually be a success as such.

However, the key will be in how the public and business react to it. It's early days for a project as unique as this, but you would expect Honda to want a big public support behind their new myearthdream.com website, as well as more sponsors willing to get involved with the team on the back of their plans.

Almost like the issue of dealing with the climate crisis itself, the end result is very much in everyone's hands - there will not be a single individual who will make or break this project.

The early feedback, from the presentations and group forums that Honda Racing held at the Natural History Museum this week, were positive though - and just three days later, by Wednesday afternoon, 45,000 GBP (some $90,000 USD) were donated on myearthdream.com, with well over 20,000 pledges already made there.

Fry said: "One of the good things is that so far the reaction we have got both in these forums and looking at the blogs and the chatrooms, is that there seems to be a message that has resonated very positively with a lot of people. So what we are getting straight out of the box is very positive.

"We are fully expecting some negative messages as well, because there will always be those people who don't appreciate this type of thing and don't quite understand or don't wish to understand how it all fits together. But we are happy to ride through that.

"This is something that is very Honda and probably would not have been taken on by any other car company. It really is an exhibition of Honda's charging spirit."

Why are Honda doing it now? Wouldn't it have been better to wait until F1 introduced 'greener' technology over the next few years?

The momentum behind making F1 more environmentally conscious has been growing in recent months. The FIA has pushed hard to ensure that the sport edges towards technologies that are relevant to more environmentally friendly road car technology.

That is why we should have hybrid-technology small diesel engines using brake and heat/exhaust gas recovery systems as the mainstay of the sport by the 2011 season. Manufacturers are ever more keen to promote their 'green' credentials and Honda have decided to make the jump in a big public way.

Fry admits that Honda Racing did not want to 'miss the boat' when it came to doing something like this - and Wada says that once the Honda board in Tokyo agreed to the concept then the move was on for them to get out there first.

"Immediately after we presented to the CEO, he said: 'Let's do it before someone else does it.' He understood the concept and we always try to be innovative. And that's not just in technology terms, it is in corporate actions. So we have strong support from Tokyo also."

It was the talk of rule changes towards greener technology that was the catalyst for the creation of the 'Earth Car'. As Fry explained: "Last year there was a very serious discussion about the future of F1. And F1 has had relatively unconstrained technical regs which have led us in all directions, some of them not so relevant in terms of usage outside of F1.

"Most of the teams are now owned by car companies and it was quite natural for those car companies to start thinking about how can this huge expenditure on F1 be channelled more wisely into technologies that can be used on road cars of the future? How can we link together the racing and road car development in order to accelerate road car developments?

"It was recognised by the participants and Max Mosley that if it didn't happen we would likely be in the dinosaur room downstairs. It wasn't going to be an appropriate way forward for F1."

So what do Honda want the public to do?

Well obviously they want the public to do their part to help the climate crisis. As Fry pointed out: "If just one percent of Honda Racing's viewership over the season swap just one light bulb at home for an energy efficient version, then it will save the equivalent of 11 times the carbon that the F1 team produces over a season."

To further help make the changes, Honda set up the previously mentioned allegiance website, myearthdream.com, where fans can pledge their support to make a difference to the environment. In return, they will get their name pixelated onto the website version of the car - and then later this season actually onto the car in micro format.

"The pledge we hope will be that they will change their personal behaviours in some way that is environmentally friendly," said Fry. "And if they wish so, and it is not necessarily tied together, then people can also make a donation to an environmental charity. And on top of that, this is rather cool especially for F1 fans, they can even pick a pixel somewhere on the car and put their name on it.

"So what we plan to do later in the season when we have had a large number of people who have gone into the website and done that, is to reprint the car graphic with everyone who has made a pledge making up the planet Earth. So the F1 fan will be able to make a donation and make a pledge and get their name on the car."

The pledges listed on the website include switching light bulbs at home to low energy versions, cutting unnecessary flights, recycling paper and even giving up ironing. So expect some creased clothing down at the Honda Racing garage this year!

Financial pledges will go to companies raising money for environmental issues, and Honda Racing are not forcing people into making any minimum contributions. After all, climate change will more be helped by individuals changing their behaviour than by them donating money to charity.

"Anything from nothing to a million pounds," said Fry when asked about how much money he expects people to donate. "It is entirely voluntary, we are not asking for any specific amount of money."

The livery choice and start of the campaign has obviously resulted in a range of reactions. Aren't Honda worried about the non-F1 fans and the environmentalists claiming that this is all a bit cynical from a road car manufacturer?

Well, there are never any guarantees that a marketing tactic like this will be welcomed with open arms by the public - but plenty of research went into the project before the green light was pushed.

The 'Earth Car' system will fail if the public ignores it and big business decides it doesn't want to be involved, but the early impressions are that such a situation will not be the case.

Fry explained: "We looked last year at the environmental posture of 100 big companies that we talked to or looked at. We found that a vast majority, about 90, had an environmental charter of some kind of nature. But actually, a majority of those did not really have many actions in place to talk about or bring it to the attention of their customers or the wider world.

"And in the autumn of last year we market researched the idea in five countries worldwide - Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan and America. We asked a series of questions like: 'how would you feel if an F1 team associated itself closely with environmental issues?'

"And frankly we were encouraged and surprised by the answers, because more than 90 percent - 94 percent to be exact - made a positive association. It was only a residual six or so that were negative to the idea, so we got a very high degree of support on a global basis for this."

And in fact a bit of resistance to the idea among some of F1's fans is probably a good thing - because Honda Racing don't necessarily want to spread their message to people who are already sold on doing something about the environment. A bigger impact will be felt if it changes the behaviour of people who think there is no problem with the climate.

"It is easy to be cynical, but you cannot deny the message," said Fry. "The message is that the world has got a problem and with the vehicle of F1, with a small v, we have the ability to communicate.

"And you might argue that the F1 fans are the hardest nuts to crack. They are the ones who are interested in high performance. They like fast cars. And for them to know that Jenson (Button) is actually driving around in a Honda Civic Hybrid, Rubens the same, I am driving around in a Civic diesel, hopefully we can say to people that you can be interested in F1 but you can also do something to improve the environment."

What sort of extra marketing activities will Honda conduct to fit in with their campaign?

Fry has confirmed that there will be track-based promotions and marketing campaigns based around the 'Earth Car' designed to support the environment message. But there are no firm details of what exactly they will be yet.

Honda have used innovative advertising for their road car campaigns for some time, and the 'Earth Car' will no doubt feature in future initiatives.

"There are plans within Honda to use this image and the theme not only in terms of (green) vehicles, but in terms of aspects of the Honda advertising message," said Fry. "And that is not just in the UK, but also elsewhere in the world.

"So this is something that has been developed very closely with Honda centrally. This is not the F1 team going off on a limb and doing it's own thing. It is a closely combined corporate message as it were, which will flow through a number of communications."

Wada added: "In many areas of the world we are planning to use this image. One thing we need to mention: now we became 100 percent Honda team and as an automotive manufacturer carrying a corporate image on the surface like this is a more natural thing to do than carry someone else's advertising. Along this line we will do many, many small things."

Is the earth image on the car going to work on television, or when the car is doing 150mph?

Perhaps the one issue surrounding the 'Earth Car' that has divided opinion the most has actually been the execution of the world image on the car. Some think it looks great, some think it looks like pond scum. Yet, you cannot argue that it gets the message across.

The digital image of Earth from space looked mighty impressive close up in the dark theatre of the Natural History Museum, but it remains to be seen how it will look far away on television, and in the harsh white light of Bahrain or the likely dark skies at Spa-Francorchamps.

Honda Racing have altered the colour several times to try and get the balance right for television and aesthetics. Tests took place in secret using a Formula Three car down an isolated farm track (to keep away from the prying eyes of the press) to try and get some camera testing done, and the colour of the land and water has evolved over time.

"The land was initially quite brown but then we tried to go a bit bluer you couldn't see anything," revealed Fry. "To get the image to this level has taken a huge amount of work and F1 cars were not designed to have the world draped over them.

"Getting the graphic right, getting the image correct, making sure the countries were recognisable, making sure Brackley was on there, it was quite a task. I freely admit that three weeks ago I thought we had bitten off a lot to get this to work graphically."

Honda sources openly admit that there will likely be changes to the colour once the car has tested in public, but like the project itself, what has appeared now is just a start.

The team are mature enough to realise that they may not have got every aspect of the design right yet - and they will make changes if they feel improvements can be made.

And what do the sport's bosses think of this idea?

Max Mosley has made no secret of the fact that he supports any move to make the F1 more environmentally aware, while Fry has revealed that Bernie Ecclestone needed little convincing about the idea behind the 'Earth Car'.

"Max and Bernie are very much on message," Fry confirmed. "It was very interesting with Bernie, who is obviously an older gentleman. When we showed him this, which was in October of last year, it took one slide of a PowerPoint presentation and he got in instantly.

"He has been very supportive of the whole thing, so we spent a long time developing this. It hasn't been done in a foolhardy, jump in with both feet kind of way, we have asked a lot of people and consulted a lot of people. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, which is great."

But isn't it slightly contradictory for a carbon dioxide-producing F1 car to be promoting environmental issues?

A racing car that produces carbon emissions is an easy target for those who want to shoot down Honda Racing's plans.

Yet the reality is that a greater good will hopefully come from Honda Racing's desire to make a difference. The carbon emissions of the RA107 are already offset by the FIA, who have supported the Solel Te project in Mexico since 1997 to offset all of F1's season-long emissions.

The hoped changes that Honda can make to F1's viewing public should further add to the possibility of the 'Earth Car' making a big impression on the world's carbon emissions.

"Max Mosley was very encouraging that we should go down this route," said Fry. "We decided to dedicate our F1 car to environmental awareness and I underline, this is an awareness programme.

"It may seem contradictory that we have an F1 car advertising the environment, but in terms of global reach, F1 is unparalleled. F1 is becoming more relevant for road car development, for more efficient road cars, and last year we saw parallels between the level of teamwork in F1 and the environment battle.

"If we are going to beat the environmental issues that face the world, it is not going to be us individually. It is not going to be me. It is not going to be Wada-san. It is going to be every single person doing a little bit. Everyone has got to play their part.

"We felt that that was a message that we wanted to communicate strongly. We are not standing here saying we know all the answers, we are not saying we stand up on a pedestal above all others because we are cleverer in some ways, that is clearly not the case. But what we are saying is that we want to do our bit. And we want people who see this F1 car do their bit as well."

So with the FIA offsetting carbon emissions in F1 since 1997, are Honda planning something similar, and will Honda Racing become carbon neutral?

Honda Racing have not openly promised to be carbon neutral as a team, but if what they are doing helps reduce the world emissions by several fold over what the team produces then they will have done more than necessary anyway.

And Fry has not ruled out the possibility of the team making some carbon offsets later in the year if they feel it is necessary.

"What we are working on at the moment is that if we need to do some offsetting at the end of the day to clear up the bits we could not get through any other means, then that is what we will have to do," he explains.

"Our initial reaction to this is that we are being guided by a company called Carbon Sense and there is lots we can do and have already started to do, and it is things that anybody could do too.

"Remarkably just before Christmas we started turning off the computer screens in the design office - which led to a 6 percent power reduction overnight just by turning things off from standby. We have bicycling to work projects, car sharing schemes, energy efficient light bulbs. There is a ton of stuff that everyone can do which just basically is trivial or cost nothing.

"And we are looking at more difficult things - like how we can run the wind tunnel by using wind turbines. But because of planning laws, that takes a lot more time. We are planning on having our motorhome in the paddock powered by solar cells and most of the races we do are in sunny places, so that is the type of thing we can do immediately. There are lots of things we can all do."

Are Honda Racing the only team doing something about the environment?

No, far from it. There has yet to be any official reaction from rival teams about what they think of Honda Racing's plans, but autosport.com did contact each outfit to ask about whether they were environmentally conscious.

From those that responded it is clear that there are varied approaches to the situation, but that is obvious because teams are of such different sizes and spread all over Europe. For new independent teams like Super Aguri what is possible is obviously going to be very different from the might of a manufacturer.

Kevin Lee, Super Aguri's chief operating officer, said: "As a young team we should be pro environmental issues and we are working hard to minimise waste, in terms of the number of components we manufacture. Hence, we have a very lean operative that saves us money and reduces carbon emissions.

"You could go as far to say that we were extremely efficient in 2006, in terms of re-cycling the Arrows A23 into an SA05 and then an SA06! If all F1 teams used four year old cars it would save a fortune, and lots of manufacturing emissions."

Some of the European-based teams are obviously governed by strict governmental regulations about their emissions (perhaps the strictest are in Switzerland and Germany for BMW-Sauber) - and all obviously fall in line.

A Ferrari spokesman told autosport.com : "There is not any specific action in due course but we strongly support the initiatives of FIA aimed to introduce an eco-concerned fuel, obviously in co-operation with Shell. The company respects the highest standard required by the Italian laws in terms of ecology."

At Williams, their partner Petrobras are involved in programmes to investigate alternatives to fossil fuels, while the team are well aware of the technological benefits that F1 can bring to the road car industry. But there are already a number of programmes that are operated at their Grove factory to minimise the team's impact on the environment.

The team confirmed that there increased efficiencies and cost savings through recycling programmes and that all paper waste products are recycled or shredded - and this programme saved more than 95 trees from destruction in 2004.

All metallic scrap is sorted and recycled, all cleaning products in the factory are bio-degradable, all green or fibrous waste is chipped and used around gardens and grounds and an Energy Survey has been commissioned by the Carbon Trust (UK Government Agency) to evaluate energy consumption and reduction opportunities.

But if you are looking for a team that appears to lead the way in being environmentally proactive then just head to Renault. The list of what the French car manufacturer have done at their Enstone factory is impressive.

Renault certainly sets a benchmark for which all teams should attain - and it is a real no brainer for teams to make similar steps because the increased efficiency that the environment so needs actually saves individuals and businesses money. There is no drawback.

Renault's Enstone site uses renewable energy, which makes it carbon neutral. Without their proactive approach, Renault estimates, the facility would emit more than 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. In 2005, the Enstone site already achieved the Kyoto protocol target of a 12.5 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2012.

The world champions actively pursue a strategy of reducing energy consumption that also improves operational efficiency. All new construction projects feature energy-efficient lighting while heating and ventilation systems are optimised for energy efficiency. They also utilise the latest lamp technology throughout the site via a partnership with Philips Technology.

The team works hard to recover waste metal from their manufacturing processes and around 40 tonnes is now recovered, while new waste disposal systems have reduced their HGV traffic on site by 50 percent.

A new sewage pumping station on site brought an 800 percent saving in energy used by this activity (more than 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum saved). And finally, they have looked at the traffic impact on the local environment and the team operates a Green Travel Policy in consultation with the local authority.

It is no wonder that Renault are embracing the moves by the FIA to make the rules more environmentally aware.

In discussing the rule proposals put forward by the FIA last December Renault technical director of engines Rob White said: "The agenda contains some very interesting ideas that are in line with the technological development goals of the major European automotive manufacturers.

"For Renault, continued development of the spark ignition engine and a focus on CO2-neutral fuels are areas in which the manufacturers share a common vision. At this stage, the future seems rich with technical challenge and promise, and we look forward to participating in the process that can help take Formula One in a direction that is relevant to the technological goals of the wider company."

So, the environment really is a big issue for Formula One, is it?

The 'Earth Car' is not going to be the single factor that stops the world hitting major trouble in the next few decades, but it will hopefully play a part.

Even the hardened cynics are now waking up to the fact that something needs to be done about the environment, and although Honda are going to have their fair share of critics for standing up and doing something different, ultimately they should be applauded for actually doing something.

And let's not underestimate what is at stake here - which in some senses goes even deeper than the blue and green object painted so vividly on the RA107.

As Al Gore, who has become a figurehead for the climate crisis push, surmised: "A scientist said recently that the test we are facing now is whether the combination of an opposable thumb and a neo-cortex is a viable combination..." Honda Racing have now joined that debate.

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