Dakar Rally News: Nico Rosberg Combines Sustainability and Motorsport
Since retiring from Formula 1 as the world champion in 2016, Nico Rosberg has turned his attention to electric mobility and becoming an eco-entrepreneur. His latest project as part of Rosberg’s Philanthropies is looking at advanced sustainability in motorsport in conjunction with Oxford University, the Dakar Rally, and the organizers of the Dakar Rally.
Fan Travel and Biodiversity
The focus of this project will be on two key areas during this year’s Dakar Rally, which is expected to attract around 470,000 visitors over the four-day event. The first area is fan travel, as the majority of the spectators are 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 Dakar Rally ticketing app to provide recommendations on how to reduce the carbon impact of fan travel for future events.
The other focus of the project will be on biodiversity and the impact the Dakar Rally has on the ecosystems living on the greenfield sites along the route. The results of this research will be published later this year.
“Fan travel is a big problem for the Dakar Rally 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. We are working with the Dakar Rally organizers because we need access to the road cameras, to their quality air quality monitors, so we’re going to leverage that data there. We need access to the surroundings of the race route because we’re doing sample testing on the biodiversity index, so the Dakar Rally organizers have been very supportive.” – Nico Rosberg
Rosberg added, “It is a case of bringing my two worlds together: green-tech and sustainability with motorsport. Racing and the Dakar Rally will always be my biggest passion, so I am very happy to come back to a race event with such a purposeful project. Nothing has been done like this before with the Dakar Rally, it is groundbreaking, and everyone has this need to decarbonize their events, so this should work as a case study for their races globally.”
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