Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel says Formula 1 should appoint an independent body to monitor the sport’s progress on sustainability.
There have been questions as to whether F1’s target to be carbon neutral by 2030 is credible in the context of the record 24-race 2023 calendar announced last week.
“Big organisations – whether it’s business or sports events – probably need to dare to make a step to find an organisation to control them,” Vettel said.
“And if they don’t stay within the limitations they put out, then face consequences.”
Vettel has admitted that his decision to retire at the end of the season was influenced by his questioning whether flying around the world to race cars was an appropriate thing to do in the face of the climate crisis.
He said that sports such as F1 had to be seen to be credible when they made pledges on sustainability.
“We can put everything on a poster and a piece of paper,” he said. “It sounds great but if it doesn’t happen, so what?
“Nations decide to sign an agreement to limit to 1.5C of global warming. If we don’t manage to do so, what are the consequences? There are some systems in place but nations can still go out [of their commitments] whenever they like in a way.
“The real transparent way would be to find an organ to control them, an external independent body, to police them [to see] if they achieve their goals or not. That is the only credible way of doing it.”
He also questioned the structure of next year’s calendar, which starts with races in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia, all two weeks apart. This, he said, would mean extra air travel as personnel flew back to Europe in between each of the races.
“Now there is more interest in F1, there is a bigger chance to make money and it is all fair and valid,” Vettel said.
“But if you look at the first three races, then the easy wins [to reduce environmental costs] would be to save on travel and flights.
“Everyone will go there and come back for three weeks in row. That’s fair because everyone has family and life and you can’t expect people to stay out for eight weeks at the beginning of the season.”
F1 is taking a series of steps towards limiting its impact on the environment, including switching the cars to fully sustainable synthetic fuel in 2026.
An F1 spokesperson said: “Formula 1 has committed to be Net Zero Carbon by 2030 and have sustainably fuelled cars by 2026.
“We are focused on reducing our carbon footprint across the sport and want to work towards regionalising the calendar more.
“It won’t change overnight as we are a world championship with races in many locations.
“Simply changing the calendar in one sweep comes up against climatic issues as we cannot race in certain places at certain times of the year and also important dates for promoters need to be maintained.”
