Future
Aramco and Formula 2: Pioneering the use of 100% advanced sustainable fuel in 2025
by Samarth Kanal
5min read
Next year, the FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 Championships will use 100% advanced sustainable fuels as they push the frontiers of technology together with Aramco. Not only will this bring the FIA junior single-seater championships into a new era, but will also drive progress on the road.
In 2022, Aramco partnered with F2 and F3 to supply advanced sustainable fuel and, from 2023, the championships have been using fuel of which 55% is sourced from second generation bio components.
From 2025, the FIA F2 and F3 Championships will make a significant step towards achieving the governing body’s goal of being net zero carbon in 2030 - and the technology could find its way onto the road. Advanced sustainable fuels, or lower-carbon fuels, can be bio-based.
Here’s how they work, and how Aramco’s partnership with F2 and F3 will affect high-level motorsport and the world beyond.
Our intent is to test these fuels under extreme conditions. We need to validate their potential.
Amer A. Amer
, Aramco chief technologist
Why has Aramco partnered with F2 and F3?
Motorsport is an effective testbed for emerging technologies, whether that's carbon-fibre, driver safety gear (such as racing helmets), or even SAFER trackside barriers.
This is the case with lower-carbon fuels. Aramco aims to deploy these fuels to the road and revolutionise lower-carbon transport, but it needs to put the technology through a rugged test case first.
“This has been a very exciting partnership with F2 and F3,” explained Amer A. Amer, Aramco chief technologist, transport technologies. “Our intent is to test these fuels under extreme conditions. We need to validate their potential.
“Before we take that to the next step, the investment in making future fuels is going to take significant resources and time - and we need to make sure that these fuels perform as well as we expect them to do in these extreme conditions.
“So, validation is very critical. This partnership [with F2 and F3] has been a major enabler for us to achieve that. We've been very excited about this relationship that we've had.”
Away from the track, Aramco has been evaluating the efficacy of lower-carbon fuel.
F2 and F3 CEO Bruno Michel added that “the relationship [with Aramco] is getting closer and closer.”
Formula 3 (pictured) will use 100% advanced sustainable fuel in 2025 along with Formula 2
What are bio-based fuels?
Advanced sustainable fuels are lower-carbon sources of energy that are not derived from fossil fuels. This includes biofuels, which are sometimes made of food crops but can be formed from non-food-competing sources such as bio-waste, industrial waste, or household waste.
Ethanol is an example of a biofuel as it can be made from corn or sugarcane residue (bagasse).
Fuels composed from non-food-competing are known as ‘second-generation’ sustainable fuels. Aramco has been working with Formula 1 to adopt these fuels from 2026. Currently, however, F1 uses E10 fuel - fuel of which 10% is ethanol.
In the case of F2 and F3, they have been using 55% sustainably-sourced fuel in 2023 and 2024. Next season, every drop of that fuel within all 52 F2 and F3 cars will be derived from 100% second generation bio components
Pierre-Olivier Calendini, fuel research centre director, Aramco, explained that the challenge for 2025 was to identify the right components to blend with the existing fuel in order to ensure fuel performance and characteristics, including combustibility.
“So, this goes through a lot of tests on the engine, on the labs and now we are getting close to a very good fuel. We are getting very close to finalise the fuel and to get all the performance,” said Calendini.
Formula 1 aims to adopt 100% sustainable fuel from 2026 having partnered with Aramco
What are the advantages of lower-carbon fuels?
Fuels derived from sustainable components have lower lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than conventional fuel while maintaining the same levels of engine performance.
Crucially, Aramco’s lower-carbon fuels are ‘drop-in’ fuels - meaning they can be utilised in existing internal combustion engines (ICEs).
In motorsport, the adoption of lower-carbon and net zero carbon fuels means that the sound and sensation of existing combustion engines need not be lost in favour of alternate powertrains as championships such as F1, F2 and F3 work towards achieving a net zero carbon target.
Those fuels can also be adopted in road cars, of which an overwhelming majority are powered by ICEs.
A Stellantis engine powered by sustainable fuel on a dynamometer
In Europe alone, the average lifespan of internal combustion engines is well over a decade. Given the sustainability advantage of retaining these cars over producing new ones - and the cost for consumers of purchasing new cars - drivers will continue to use combustion-engined cars for the foreseeable future.
Global carbon dioxide emissions could therefore be reduced by implementing these fuels into existing vehicles and, given fuel stations are abundant, using drop-in lower-carbon fuels would require little in the way of added fuel station infrastructure.
The Repsol/Aramco Petronor facility in Bilbao, Spain
Formula 2 and Formula 3 Mecachrome engines will be tweaked for sustainable fuel to be deployed
Will 100% advanced sustainable fuel affect performance and reliability in F2 and F3?
Aramco, F2 and F3 have put the Mecachrome engines through extensive testing on a dynamometer (dyno), which measures the torque and rotational speed (RPM) of an engine to ensure consistent and reliable power delivery using sustainable fuels.
Pierre-Alain Michot, Formula 2 and Formula 3 technical director at Formula Motorsport Limited, said: “We have tested this fuel for the past months already on the dyno with our engine supplier [Mecachrome] and we have achieved a lot of mileage with this fuel to make sure that the car is still complying as we expected, that we still have the performance - and for what we have done until now, it is really in line with our expectation.”
Next year, however, F2 and F3 are considering using direct injection - where fuel is injected directly into the engine’s combustion chamber - engines rather than indirect injection, where fuel and air are mixed outside the combustion chamber and then fed in to be ignited.
The engines will also need to be remapped, changing how the Engine Control Unit (ECU) behaves in regards to parameters such as ignition timing and fuel injection rate.
As a result, fuel consumption for next year’s F2 and F3 engines will be slightly lower.
Down the line, Aramco’s investment and partnerships in motorsport might yield wide-ranging reductions when it comes to air travel, road-based freight and logistics, and public and private mobility.