F1's ironic carbon footprint increase shown in interesting fan-made Instagram reel

An interesting animated graphic on Instagram shows the distance that F1 teams will travel during the 2023 season, highlighting the carbon emissions that will take place because of the same.

With 23 confirmed races, this will be the biggest season of the sport ever. Races are scheduled all across the globe spanning almost every continent.

Due to this, planning the schedule for the races carefully can play a huge part in controlling carbon emissions. This is an area of improvement that the authorities have mentioned as well. However, the schedule for the upcoming season does not seem to take that into account, as the graphic shows.

F1 authorities have, on various occasions, talked about grouping the races "region-wise" in an attempt to reduce travel and consequently reduce carbon emissions. However, when the race calendar for the upcoming season was released, there were no significant changes.

There are a lot of places where the authorities had the potential to group races regionally, but that unfortunately isn't the case.

The season will start with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East before moving to Australia. After that, they will travel back to Azerbaijan and then to the US. Since there are three US GPs in the upcoming season, they could all have been grouped together, but they are spread throughout the length of the season. Due to this, teams, equipment, support staff, and media will have to make various journeys, which will multiply carbon emissions.

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How is grouping of races related to F1's low carbon emission project?

F1's governing bodies have been focused on making the sport more environmentally friendly in recent years. In an attempt towards the same goal, the sport has been working towards introducing 100% sustainable fuel.

However, it must be realized that the sport's racing calendar plays a much larger role in carbon emissions.

Interestingly, carbon emissions from the fuel itself form a very low percentage of the overall emissions (0.7%) related to the sport. It was found that the logistics and transport throughout the season compensate for around 45% of the total carbon emission. This means that even if F1 comes out with a way to make 0 emissions through the car engines, it will have a negligible effect.

Hence, it is important for the authorities to group races together (regionally), so that carbon emissions are reduced.