• CVC figures reveal details of F1 right sale transaction
• IMechE adds Low Carbon competition to Formula Student
• Champ Car team closing down
• Express Composites appoints new head of business development
• New speaker confirmed for PRI show
• European Commission prepares new rules on tyre noise
• Crutzen study: Some biofuels’ N20 emissions worse than saved fossil fuel CO2 emissions
• RAC Foundation suggests voluntary road pricing
• ECG appoints FOE (Italy) to produce a CO2 footprint standard

Accounts posted by the UK based holding company Alpha Prema, which is owned by the private equity firm CVC, have revealed details of the transaction in March 2006 in which CVC purchased the commercial rights to Formula One.

The figures show that CVC paid $1.7bn (£834m) for the rights. Three investment banks, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers and Bayerische Landesbank, which owned 75% of the rights received the majority of that sum while Bambino, the family trust of F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone, benefited by $478m from the sale its share.

The UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is to add a Low Carbon class to its Formula Student collegiate racecar design competition starting in 2008.

The Low Carbon competition will be officially launched at the UK’s Silverstone race circuit on October 22 and Flybrid Systems, the Silverstone based developers of hybrid technology including Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems for Formula One cars, is set to be named as the main sponsor of the new category.

John Wood, Formula Student chairman, said, ''The event is an innovative, cutting-edge competition, and alternative fuels are on everyone's agenda.

"It also ties in with the IMechE's key themes, Education, Environment, Transport and Energy, so it makes enormous sense for us to be a leader in this area.''

The American RuSport team has announced that it will withdraw from the US based Champ Car World Series at the end of the 2007 season and will cease operations.

Based in Loveland, Colorado, RuSport was founded in 1999 by Carl Russo and Steve Wulff. Initially the team competed in the junior Toyota Atlantic series before moving up to the Champ Car World Series in 2004.

Russo and Wulff left the organisation at the end of 2006 when the team was acquired by new owner Dan Pettit. In 2007 the team has co-operated in a technical partnership with the rival Rocketsports CCWS organisation.

In its four seasons in the CCWS RuSport won four races and one of its drivers finished second in the championship in 2006.

The Norfolk, UK based Express Composites Group, which recently expanded with the acquisition of Racing Technology Norfolk, has appointed Oliver Shearman as its head of business development.

Shearman has more than 25 years experience in the high performance automotive, motor racing and commercial vehicle engineering industries.

Express Composites Group marketing director, Steve Godwin said, "Oliver's appointment represents another step in our investment for growth in the business. He brings extensive knowledge and experience of vehicle development programmes from his work with Ford, Group Lotus Engineering and more recently with the Italian ATR Composites Group, spanning projects in the EU, USA and Far East. This appointment clearly demonstrates that the Express Composites Group with Racing Technology Norfolk under its wing is 'open for business' as a global supplier of composite materials solutions".

The organisers of the giant American Performance Racing Industry motorsport industry trade show have confirmed that NASCAR Nextel Cup driver Carl Edwards is to replace former NASCAR Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip as the speaker at the show’s annual Grand Opening Breakfast.

Waltrip was obliged to withdraw from the engagement due to clashing television commitments. The PRI Show takes place at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, Florida from December 6-8.

After the European Commission’s first consultation for several years on maximum permitted tyre noise ended recently, the European environmental transport lobby group T&E has called for an overall reduction of at least five decibels. It reports the EC is planning a new tyre noise regulation before the end of this year, reportedly to include both noise and rolling resistance, as a constituent of its planned regulation to impose a 130 g/km CO2 emissions limit for cars by 2012.

The current EU tyre noise standards were introduced six years ago. T&E policy officer Nina Renshaw said in the group’s latest newsletter: “Even when they were introduced, the existing standards were easily met by most of the tyres on the market. Given wider tyres increasingly coming onto the market, it’s essential the EU proposes, without delay, effective standards to cut noise from passenger and commercial tyres, and we’re suggesting 5dB or more across the board.”

There are, says T&E, already tyres on the market 8dB quieter than the current maximum limit, so a 5dB reduction would be technically feasible and need not compromise other aspects of tyre performance. T&E also says further tightening should follow in 2016, for which indications should be agreed now.

The EC, says T&E, said earlier this month that it would continue collecting data on overall vehicle noise until 2009-10, and would only then consider legislation to tighten existing standards.

(www.transportenvironment.org/docs/Bulletin/2007/2007_10_bulletin_162.pdf)

A paper on biofuels’ climate impact published online by Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, a group led by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and including Keith Smith, Hon. Professor at Edinburgh University’s Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, suggests that nitrous oxide release from biofuels can cause more global warming than the fossil fuel saved.

It reexamines the relationship, on a global basis, between the amount of nitrogen fixed by chemical, biological or atmospheric processes entering the terrestrial biosphere, and the total emission of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, N2O, and shows that this emission is much greater than previously believed. Consequently, the emissions of N2O associated with nitrogen fertiliser use in the production of biodiesel from rapeseed oil and bioethanol from cereal crops can more than cancel out the reduction in net CO2 emissions resulting from the replacement of fossil fuels by these biofuels.

In contrast, crops requiring little or no fertiliser N were found to be much more benign in GHG emissions terms. The full reference is P. J. Crutzen, A. R. Mosier, K. A. Smith, and W. Winiwarter. 2007. N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels.

(www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/papers_in_open_discussion.html)

- The German biodiesel industry is reported by Planet Ark to be lobbying against tax increases timetabled for next January, and worried that bad press about the social, environmental impacts of rapeseed biodiesel will influence the decision. The agency quoted spokesman Frank Bruehning, who said the above-mentioned paper on N20 outputs from Prof Crutzen and colleagues assumed higher levels of fertiliser use than applied in Europe.

The Government appears to have hit a brick wall in trying to convince the public about road pricing, according to Edmund King, the director of the RAC Foundation, in a speech at the National Transport Conference in London today.. He suggests that a voluntary scheme with rewards for early adopters, including cuts in fuel tax, might be the way ahead.

Reminding delegates that more than 1.8 million individuals signed the Downing Street petition opposing road pricing, King will urge UK authorities today to use the lessons learned from a voluntary road-pricing scheme piloted in Oregon, USA, where motorists who opted into the pay- as- you- go scheme received discounts on fuel duty at the pumps.

Royal Automobile Club Foundation research on the acceptability of road pricing schemes has consistently found that the majority of motorists (60%) accept the principle that it would be fairer to pay for the roads according to the time spent driving in congestion, but are worried about how this change would impact their lives.

Support for the concept of charging has increased slightly over the last four years, but support for any specific application of congestion charging is starting to wane. UK motorists also believe that any road pricing scheme should be socially just, with 58% agreeing that there should be protection for those on low incomes. When asked where finances should be reinvested, over 50% of motorists believe that finances should be directed straight back into the road network itself and acceptability increases if there are equivalent reductions in other motoring taxes.

The RAC Foundation believes the government needs to change the way the debate on road pricing is presented. Edmund King says: "A voluntary scheme that gave motorists other benefits would be a step in the right direction. No-one is likely to buy "road pricing" , but they might be interested in subscribing to "UK DriveTime" as a package of solutions which incorporates services that motorists actually want.

"Motorists who opt into a "UK DriveTime" scheme could benefit from reduced fuel duty, congestion avoidance systems, up-to-date parking information, cheaper insurance and e-call technology, which pinpoints the car and calls the emergency services in the event of an accident. The mechanics of the system would run in the same way as the Oregon trial and the RAC Foundation believes that even a voluntary scheme would have an immediate impact on congestion."

ECG, the Association of European Vehicle Logistics, has commissioned Friends of the Earth (Italy) to study ‘The External Costs of Logistics of Vehicles, Uniform European Values to Measure the Company’s Environmental Performance.’

The study will be completed in six months and is to provide a set of reference data allowing the measurement of the external cost of transport for new vehicles (including the indirect cost not borne by logistics operators but falling onto the wider public: CO2 emissions, air pollution, noise, congestion, accidents). In particular the study will provide a standard to measure CO2 emissions per kilometre and per single car transported by road, rail or sea.

The ECG / FoE (Italy) CO2 Standard will allow measurement of the emissions of:

- Trucks with Euro 3, Euro4 and Euro 5 engines with the car transporters loading ratio ranging from empty to fully loaded

- Electric and diesel trains with 22 wagons

- Pure Car Carrier ships in two sizes: fewer than 2,000 cars and 5,000 cars or more.

The study will highlight many of the inefficiencies affecting the distribution of cars and commercial vehicles, and hopefully cut the kilometres that car transporters run empty. The necessity to cut inefficiencies was the other major subject of the 11th ECG conference, during which the ECG launched a “Common Efficiency Improvement Program”, a platform for the industry as a whole – including logistics service providers and car manufacturers.

An ECG Operations Quality Manual has also been developed, with contributions from BMW, Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Seat and Volvo. ECG is now working to create a Damage Reporting standard, a volume prediction model, and a common data platform.

(www.eurocartrans.org)