• Honda F1 chairman returns to Japan
• Indianapolis CEO targets F1 return
• F1 composites pioneer sells company
• WTCC supporting Make Cars Green campaign
• Watkins to speak at MIA networking dinner
• Events: Biofuels and land use changes - public lecture by Professor Tim Searchinger
• Commons Audit Committee urges Chancellor to stick to fuel duty escalator
• BMW forecasts EfficientDynamics will save 373,00 tonnes of CO2 this year
• CCWS files for bankruptcy

Yauhiro Wada, the chairman of the Brackley, UK based Honda Racing Formula One team is to leave the organisation at the end of March to take up a new role within the Honda corporation in Japan.

Wada, who has been the general manager of Honda's Motor Sports Division since 2000, worked with the manufacturers US based Honda Performance Development division before joining the Formula One team in 2005. In his new role Wada will become the general manager of the Public Relations Division at the Honda Motor Company in Japan. Keita Muramatsu will replace him as general manager, Motor Sports Division.

According to a report in the American Indianapolis Business Journal newspaper Indianapolis Motor Speedway president and CEO Tony George has targeted bringing the Formula One United States Grand Prix back to the track in time for the facilities centenary in 2009.

The IBJ report quotes Zak Brown of Just Marketing, an Indianapolis-based that has been hired by the IMS to help sign a title sponsor for the F1 race as saying that F1 impresario Bernie Ecclestone and the series’ existing sponsors have a “strong interest” in the race returning to the IMS.

Brown told the IBJ, “I know there’s been talk of having an F1 race at Las Vegas or Miami, but the Speedway is the only facility in the U.S. that is up to F1 standards,” Brown said. “Indianapolis is turnkey and ready to go. If the right sponsors can be put into place, I think this can happen in 2009.”

“I think F1 will come back. At this point, I think it’s a matter of when, not if.”

John Barnard, the motorsport designer engineer who pioneered the use of advanced composites in the construction of Formula One cars, has agreed to sell his interests in his UK based company B3 Technologies which specialises in the design and manufacture of components for motorsport and high performance applications.

Surrey based B3T was originally set up by Barnard as a UK design office for the Ferrari Formula One team during the second period in which he worked for the Italian manufacturer from 1995 to 1997.

In his 35-year career in Formula One Barnard also worked with the McLaren, Benetton, Arrows, Prost and Rebaque teams.

The new owners of the company are a consortium headed by B3's former commercial director John Minett who has recruited the ex-McLaren F1 design engineers Steve Nichols and Matthew Jeffreys to the new board of directors.

Competitors in the 2008 World Touring Car Championship, which started last weekend in Curitiba, Brzail, are supporting the FIA's Make Cars Green campaign.

All cars competing in the series will prominently carry the campaign's logo.

Make Cars Green is an international campaign, aimed at reducing the impact of motoring on the environment. This can be achieved in a number of ways, such as through the promotion of more environmentally friendly and fuel efficient driver behaviour; the introduction of new technologies to help motorists monitor their environmental impact; the improvement of tyre design to help save energy; and by encouraging the global use of unleaded and sulphur free fuels.

As part of the campaign, the FIA has launched a public policy Declaration which calls on the United Nations to adopt the first ever worldwide target for CO2 emissions in passenger cars. Make Cars Green also outlines how policy makers, industry and consumers can all play a constructive role in the development of a more ecologically sustainable means of personal mobility in the future.

FIA President Max Mosley said, “It is immensely satisfying that so many competitors in world motor sport are championing the FIA's campaign to make motoring more sustainable in the future. This support will be a major benefit to our mission to encourage ecologically sound mobility worldwide.

Jacques Behar, Chairman & CEO of WTCC series organisers KSO, said, "The WTCC is honoured to support the FIA's Make Cars Green campaign. Because of the obvious relationship between the touring cars and their road-going equivalents, we strongly believe that the WTCC has a key role to play in raising public awareness of these environmental initiatives.”

The UK’s Motorsport Industry Association has confirmed that Professor Sid Watkins OBE will be the guest speaker at its first Business Networking Dinner of 2008

Watkins was the first ever dedicated F1 race doctor a position he held for 26 years. He is also the President of the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety which works to improve safety in every area of the sport including: driver equipment, vehicle design, circuit design and spectator protection, rescue and medical facilities, and race control.

The Networking Dinner takes place at Hatfield House, St Albans on April 23.

Professor Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University will deliver a public lecture on the subject: "How Land Use Change Alters Our Thinking About Biofuels" in a joint LowCVP/Imperial College event in the afternoon of Wednesday 19 March. Professor Searchinger will be presenting the results of his recent study into biofuels and land-use change.

The Abstract of Searchinger's study says: "Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because growing the crops for biofuels sequesters carbon. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that will occur either as farmers worldwide directly convert forest or grassland to produce biofuels or as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels.

Two new papers in Science magazine have now calculated that the emissions from this land use change for most biofuels that use productive land are likely to mean that these biofuels overall result in substantially increased greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years. Even advanced biofuels from biomass, if produced on good cropland, could have adverse greenhouse gas effects."

Tim Searchinger is a Visiting Scholar and Lecturer in public and international affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is also a Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a Senior Fellow at the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute. Trained as a lawyer, Searchinger now works primarily on interdisciplinary environmental issues related to agriculture.

For more information or to confirm a place at the free lecture, contact Alison Parker at Imperial College. Email:

(www.lowCVP.org.uk)

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee called on 5th March for a rise in green taxes. Given that road transport emissions in England went up by 12% between 1997 and 2006, the Committee said the forthcoming Budget is a test of the Treasury's environmental credibility and that it must not defer its planned rises in fuel duty. The Committee also said tax on aviation should be increased, and a new rate introduced for 'very long-haul' destinations.

In its report, “The 2007 Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review: An environmental analysis,” the Committee says there is little sign the Treasury has taken on board the recommendations made in the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in its approach to the environment. Green taxes have continued to decline, while increases in spending on the environment have fallen far short of the step-change in investment required, according to the Committee.

(www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/environmental_audit_committee/eac_050308.cf)

BMW is projecting savings in CO2 in 2008 of 373,000 tonnes in Europe, including 54,000 tonnes in the UK. Its EfficientDynamics programme enables its range of vehicles to save 33 million gallons of fuel saved compared to pre-EfficientDynamics BMWs sold in 2006.

The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics X5-based concept BMW showed at Geneva uses a mild ‘ActiveHybrid’ system with a twin-turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine, a new eight-speed automatic gearbox and roof-mounted solar panels to deliver 43.5mpg on the combined cycle and 172g/km of CO2. The diesel engine alone delivers over 100hp per litre, and the vehicle accelerates from zero to 62mph in 8.9 seconds.

Auto Start / Stop, Brake Energy Regeneration and lightweight engineering have been offered on almost all BMW products since early 2007. In the UK, cars featuring EfficientDynamics technologies now account for over 95% of all models sold. On a Europe-wide basis, this is expected to equate to more than 700,000 EfficientDynamics-equipped cars sold in 2008.

As a result of these moves, BMW has been honoured with the Innovation Award at the Auto 1 Awards ceremony at the 78th Geneva Motor Show – an award supported by the motoring titles of 26 countries.

The Champ Car World Series sanctioning body has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, less than two weeks after it was confirmed that its race championship would be merged with the rival Indy Racing League.

A filing submitted in a US Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis, shows CCWS has between $10 million and $50 million in assets and owes between one and 49 creditors between $1 million and $10 million. The papers also indicate that the Indy Racing League essentially paid $10 million for all of Champ Car’s intellectual property rights, a mobile medical unit and a non-compete agreement and a consulting fee for Champ Car co-owners Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven of which they will use $4 million to promote the Long Beach Grand Prix in April.