MOTORSPORT: Big push for electric car racing

London's Financial Times (FT) newspaper has reported that the European Commission has asked the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), of which Todt has been president for 16 months, to establish a championship for electric cars "as a way of increasing public awareness and excitement about new-technology vehicles".

Todt told the FT that the FIA was working with the European Commission to create new electric car, karting and single-seater racing categories.

The paper said that raised "the prospect of a Formula One-style electric car championship on Grand Prix circuits".

While it is hard to envisage that happening within two years, it is further evidence of Todt's determination to steer motorsport towards a "greener" future with energy-efficient cars.

That direction has him on a collision course with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and Ferrari, whose F1 team Todt managed in its most glorious days which yielded five drivers' world championships with Michael Schumacher and even more constructors' titles.

Todt has set up an electric car commission within the FIA, headed by Burkhard Goeschel, a former BMW director.

"We want as soon as possible to have new categories with new energy," Todt told the FT.

He said electric car racing could start as soon as 2013 and would be as global as the FIA could make it.

"As much as we can do it all over the world we will do it," he said.

Todt has been in talks with the European Union's industry commissioner Antonio Tajani, who has been pushing European countries to increase public adoption of electric cars.

"One of the priorities of my mandate is to give a concrete start to the ultimate conversion of the European car industry," Tajani said.

He hoped that the FIA could use its and F1's "media muscle" to stir greater public interest in electric vehicles.

Part of Todt's campaign to get F1 and other motor racing series to embrace hybrid and electronic technology has been to use F1's global reach to foster better understanding of green energy and road safety issues.

However, he is meeting strong resistance from Ecclestone, Ferrari and now Red Bull's reigning F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel over the FIA's plan to introduce 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged engines in F1 from 2013.

"The racing community are only interested in how to improve performance because they want to win," Todt told the FT.

"If you speak to the boards of manufacturers they feel a strong interest to implement the technologies, which are not so obvious for the sporting community because it costs money and research and it doesn't improve performance – and I understand that."

Ecclestone's main concern about the proposed 2013 F1 engine rules – which, ironically, he voted for some time ago as an FIA vice-president – is that the sport could lose its unique noise.

As tensions between Ecclestone and Todt have increased in recent weeks, the F1 commercial supremo has branded the FIA "a joke" under Todt, who succeeded Ecclestone's long-time ally Max Mosley in late 2009.

Todt's response has been: "It is important not to overreact. I feel with confrontation, unless it is necessary to achieve a result, you lose time. I prefer to achieve results with harmony rather than confrontation."

He said he was trying to convince the motorsport community "that we cannot be blind to the evolution of society around the world".

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