The FIA is installing the URBANFILTER concept at a racetrack for the first time, using the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort as a live testing ground. The system sits in street drainage channels and captures tire wear, brake dust and microplastics before rain washes them into the water cycle. The Audi Environmental Foundation has backed the project since September 2020, and recent tests at Zandvoort returned retention rates of up to 99 percent.
Formula 1 rarely gets credit for cleaning anything up, but the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort is hosting a first: the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) is deploying the URBANFILTER concept at a racetrack, the first time the technology has been used in top-level motorsport.
The idea behind it is deliberately unglamorous. Roads collect a steady load of contaminants — tire wear, brake dust, microplastics and other pollutants — that sit on the surface until rain or wind carries them away. Once they reach drains, they enter the water cycle. URBANFILTER is designed to intercept as much of that material as possible at the drainage channel, before it travels any further.
Six years from lab bench to race weekend
The Audi Environmental Foundation has supported the development of smart filters for street drains since September 2020, working with scientists from the Technical University of Berlin alongside other partners. Filtration specialist GKD and rainwater company ARIS also contributed to the concept.
According to the foundation, the system has been through both laboratory and real-world testing — in Berlin and Copenhagen, on an ADAC wet-handling course, and on a winding main road. Testing at Zandvoort itself produced a retention rate of up to 99 percent, though the company notes the figure depends on how heavy the rain is and what the particles themselves are like.
A racetrack as a stress test
A circuit is an unusually demanding environment for this kind of hardware: concentrated tire and brake debris, and drainage that has to cope with sudden heavy rain on a coastal track.
“We are proud that the FIA is providing this important issue with a global stage and a testing ground under extreme conditions through its involvement in Formula 1,” says Sven Veit, Managing Director of the Audi Environmental Foundation. “Motorsport is once again proving that it can serve as a technological role model.”
The foundation was set up in 2009 as a wholly owned, nonprofit subsidiary of AUDI AG, and concentrates on what it calls “Greenovation” projects — technologies aimed at more sustainable use of natural resources. Its argument here is one of scale: a filter developed for city streets can be lifted into a very different setting without redesigning the concept.
Audi’s own Formula 1 paperwork
Audi has been racing in Formula 1 with a factory team since the start of this season. Entry to the series required compliance with the FIA’s rules on synthetic or biomass-derived fuels and a high share of electrical energy in the power unit.
After an audit a few months ago, the FIA awarded a three-star environmental certification to Audi’s Formula 1 power unit development site at Neuburg — the highest grade under FIA guidelines. The site already holds ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 certification, and the manufacturer points to measures such as renewable energy for both electricity and heat.
What it means
Microplastics from tire wear are one of the harder pollution problems for the car industry to answer, because they are produced by every vehicle on the road regardless of what powers it. Filtering at the drain does not reduce the wear itself, but it does offer a retrofittable way to keep particles out of waterways — and a Formula 1 weekend gives that argument an audience it would not otherwise reach.
The filters are in place at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix.
Source: www.audi.com