Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team powers trucks, generators for 2024 European season on 100% renewable diesel

Photo: Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

In line with its ambition to become one of the most sustainable global professional sports teams, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team has successfully powered its race and marketing trucks and generators for the 2024 European season on 100 percent hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO100), a second-generation biofuel also known as renewable diesel.

Working with its title and technical partner Petronas and its logistics partners, the team set a target to extend its use of biofuels during the nine 2024 European races, powering its freight logistics and motorhome on sustainable fuels.

“Despite the complexities of the supply chain across Europe, we are proud to have achieved 98 percent biofuel coverage in our race and marketing trucks and generators, resulting in a saving of over 500 tons of CO2-equivalent from our carbon footprint,” the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team stated.

This represents an uplift from 74 percent biofuel coverage over the 2023 European races to 98 percent coverage in 2024.

These results take the team closer to its target for “Race Team Control Net Zero” by 2030 and form part of its wider sustainable fuels strategy.

Since the initial pilot in 2022, the team has provided proof of concept to help reduce the impact of the sport’s logistics and power demands.

“We extend our thanks to our title and technical partner Petronas for their invaluable support and market expertise in helping to develop our biofuel capabilities over the past three seasons,” the team stated. “Sourcing and delivering HVO100 in bulk to multiple locations across Europe, Petronas’ contribution to fueling the marketing trucks, which deliver our motorhome, has been critical to ensuring the success of our achievements and progress.”

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team said it will continue to drive the use of sustainable fuels and make progress in extending its biofuel use to flyaway races next season.

“Powering our European season on biofuel is a first for our team and sport, and I hope our achievements, with the invaluable support, expertise and supply capability of our title and technical partner Petronas will inspire others to follow,” said Toto Wolff, the team principal and CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team. “We look forward to now challenging ourselves to expand the use of sustainable fuel in our logistics beyond the European races and continuing to prepare for the introduction of the fully sustainable fuel, which will power the 2026 cars on track.”

Alice Ashpitel, the team’s head of sustainability, added, “We’re a team of problem solvers and pursuing sustainable high performance is always front of mind. Optimizing our logistics operations and achieving almost total biofuel coverage reflects our team’s significant sustainability efforts and it’s a real inspiration to see the reduction of our impact at the track and on the road. We continue to address the largest sources of our emissions, and how we transport the team’s freight and power our operations across the globe remain key focus areas.”