Ferrari driver and four-time champion discusses what interests him about F1's push for a more sustainable future and lots more in Sky F1 interview
Friday 20 November 2020 19:01, UK
Sebastian Vettel has welcomed F1's push towards the use of sustainable fuels in the future and is hopeful the sport's work for its engine future can prove a "game-changer" for the road-car industry.
In an update released last week detailing progress towards the sport's target of achieving a net-zero carbon footprint by 2030, F1 said work was underway looking into how hybrid engine technology can be married with sustainable fuels for when the next-generation engine is introduced, currently planned for 2026.
And Vettel, the four-time world champion, believes F1's engineering and brainpower can be put to good use in that area to help make a wider difference into the future.
"You learn as you go and especially when you have kids in this world you wonder what sort of world you will leave them and they will grow up in," he said in a Sky Sports F1 interview.
"For the future, there are some plans and especially the most interesting one, I guess, is the introduction of biofuels, or synthetic fuels.
"That could really be a game-changer also for mobility outside F1 and mobility around the globe.
"We have the technology and the engineering power to move quicker on that and we have to change and that will be a completely different status and game for Formula 1 to tackle. We have the resources, we burn money, so let's burn it for something useful that also will find its way onto the road."
Ahead of the Turkish GP where he claimed an unexpected first podium of the season, Vettel spoke to Ted Kravitz on a number of different topics away from what has proved a difficult season on the track for the four-time world champion.
Fourteen years before and Istanbul Park was the venue for a 19-year-old Vettel's first appearance on a GP weekend, when he drove in Friday practice for BMW Sauber, and also his first UK F1 TV interview, the first of many with a certain pit-lane reporter.
Vettel and Ted watch back that very first encounter and then get into a discussion on a number of topics - including the 'Together As One' crash helmet Sebastian wore last weekend, the global causes that he cares about and, in a quick-fire finish, his love of dogs more than cats and the saying he likes to live his life by.
