Extreme E racer has the hype, but what about environmental cred?

Nigel Mansell famously had some trouble fitting into a Formula One car, and it just shows you how far technology has come over the years, because today the Mercedes-Benz team can somehow fit not only Lewis Hamilton’s whippet physique and awful hair in there, but his enormous ego as well.

A man with surprisingly little self awareness for someone who clearly spends a lot of time with mirrors, Hamilton has long been an advocate of a greener world, apparently, despite the fact that he earns his mega-millions from a sport that might rival all others for its emissions and rapacious use of the world’s scientific resources.

Seriously, I went to the team’s headquarters in the UK last year and listened in awe as they explained how their factory runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to create new parts for its car, 80 percent of which never actually get used in a race.

And how it has the best brains in the world doing this work. People who could, if properly motivated, save the world, quite possibly.

And yet last year, Lewis, with always slightly weepy tone, using his Instagram soapbox, declared the world a “mess”, suggested that he felt like “giving up on everything” and then encouraged everyone to become vegans instead.

There’s no point ranting and raving about what an utter dill weed Hamilton is, because he just puts it all out there himself.

In that same year of self-flagellation, Formula One calculated that its own collective carbon footprint was 256,551 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Sure, just 0.7 per cent of that was the stuff coming out of the actual race cars, which boast excellent thermal efficiency of around 50 percent, but the umpteen flights taken to haul all the gear and people more than made up for that.

On the plus side, Lewis Hamilton didn’t eat any cows. Which might almost counteract his hair spray and make-up use.

But now it is time to rejoice, because the always subtly pierced eminence has declared that he will bring the world’s attention on to the global climate crisis by applying his fame to an event that will see races held in remote, ravaged locations, including the Arctic and the Amazon.

Because nothing helps an imperilled ecosystem like having enormous tanks raced over it.

The inaugural all-electric, off-road racing Extreme E series begins next year, organised by the people behind Formula E racing and aims to promote electrification of vehicles, sustainability in general, and, er, “equality”.

All plants and animals must have an equal right to be crushed under a big, fat wheel, I guess.

Hamilton has announced he will have a team competing in what he calls this “exciting new project”, which appealed to him because of its “environmental focus”.

In unrelated news, Japan has announced it will bring global attention to the plight of endangered whales by killing them more humanely from now on..

But please, back to Lewis, who opined: “Every single one of us has the power to make a difference, and it means so much to me that I can use my love of racing, together with my love for our planet, to have a positive impact,” he said in a statement.

“I’m looking forward to the team taking part in this new series and I think it’s incredible that we can do so whilst raising awareness about the climate crisis.”

And he’s right, it is in-credible, as in lacking in credibility entirely.

Sorry, Hamilton’s team will be called X44, which isn’t his hat size, it’s a reference to his F1 racing number.

Extreme E is also going to work with scientific experts to raise awareness of issues including carbon emissions, melting ice caps, deforestation, desertification, droughts, plastic pollution and rising sea levels.

Just in case you didn’t think this racing series could be any more woke, each race will consists of two laps over a distance of 16km with two drivers, one man and one woman, completing a lap each.

The most 2020 part of what will be the big event of 2021 is that spectators will not be allowed to attend, to minimise the effect on the environment (as opposed to just not holding the event at all).

They’ll be expected to watch it on solar-powered TVs instead.

In the column of small mercies, we could find just one thing – Hamilton will not take part in the event as a driver.