Car Throttle

Here’s an interesting tech tid-bit that I missed from the opening race of the F1 season: The Ferraris are running bio-fuel. Specifically, it’s some sort of cellulosic ethanol blend that the boys from Maranello and Shell developed. Well that’s pretty cool. Not that it will be enough to silence the naysayers, but it’s still worth looking into.

Before we get into that though, let me just say a hearty congratulations and salute! to Fernando Alonso for chalking up his first win (his first time out!) with the Scuderia. Good job on that, and the Maranello based tam looks to be formidable contenders this year.

So what’s the deal with this cellulosic ethanol then? For one thing, it’s not entirely new. Corvette Racing and a bunch of other teams in the American Le Mans Series have been racing on cellulosic ethanol for two seasons now. So it’s obvious that it works in a racing context (just as the Porsche privateers how well the Vettes work).

Last weeks race in Bahrain, however, marks the first appearance in Formula One of the alcohol fuel. This is due to a new for 2010 regulation that requires a small component of oxygenated fuel to be used. Ferrari and its long time fuel supplier, Shell, have developed a racing blend that contains cellulosic ethanol to provide the oxygen needed for the new regs.

Meeting the regs or not, it seemed to work well for Ferrari. Running on the new cellulosic ethanol, the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Brazilian teammate Felipe Massa finished first and second during the opening round at Bahrain. Good for them (as a team) but I wonder how Massa is going to react in the coming rounds.

There was no exact figures given by either Shell or the Scuderia, but the percentage of cellulosic ethanol is thought to be much less than that used in other series. The percentage of ethanol run in ALMS competition, for example, is 85 percent. Not that I think there’s anything nefarious going on here, it’s just if Shell were to divulge the cellulosic ethanol percentage, a competitor could work back from there on other constituents in the tank.

Interestingly, the ethanol was produced at the Iogen demonstration plant Ottawa Canada of all places. The bio-juice is derived from wheat straw that was grown nearby (lots of wheat in Ottawa). As it turns out, Shell is an investor in Iogen and the companies are working on a full-scale commercial scale plant in neighboring Saskatchewan.

Source: AutoBlogGreen