Nico Rosberg has partnered with Oxford University and the British Grand Prix to assess the impact the race has on the environment.
Since retiring from Formula 1 as the world champion in 2016, Rosberg has turned his attention to electric mobility and becoming an eco-entrepreneur.
His latest project as part of Rosberg Philanthropies is looking at advanced sustainability in motorsport in conjunction with Oxford University, Formula 1 and Silverstone.
The focus will be on two key areas during this week’s race, which will attract around 470,000 visitors over the four days.
One area will be fan travel. With the majority of the spectators expected to arrive by car, the research project will have access to ANPR camera data, air quality monitors, satellite imagery from the European Space Agency, and data from the Silverstone ticketing app to provide recommendations on how to reduce the carbon impact of fan travel for future events.
The other focus will be on biodiversity and the impact the race has on the ecosystems living on the green field site with the results published later this year.
Rosberg, who won the 2013 British GP at Silverstone, told Autosport: “Fan travel is a big problem for the British Grand Prix with the amount of fans joining. It's close to half a million people and most people arrive with their cars, so definitely, it's a good case study.
“It is also ideally located because of the vicinity to Oxford University and the PhD students that I'm sponsoring for this project.
“We are working with Silverstone because they provide valuable insights to road cameras, air quality monitors and their ticketing app, so we're going to leverage that data there.
“We need access to the surroundings of the racetrack because we're doing sample testing on the biodiversity index, so Silverstone have been very supportive.
“It is a case of bringing my two worlds together - green-tech and sustainability with motorsport. Racing and F1 will always be my biggest passion, so I am very happy to come back to a race track with such a purposeful project.
“Nothing has been done like this before with Formula 1, it is groundbreaking and everyone has this need to decarbonise their events, so this should work as a case study for their races globally.”
