It is often said that perception is more important than reality in F1. What irony then, that at a time when Formula 1 is struggling to reinvent itself as an environmentally responsible sport that the organizers of the Singapore Grand Prix have chosen Earth Hour to debut megawatt using streetlights that will be used to illuminate F1’s first night race later this year.

The lights (300 times more powerful than normal street lights) are being tested today when much of the world is turning their lights off for one hour to symbolically bring attention to the growing environmental crisis. The lights (only a fraction of the 1500 that will be used in the race) will be left in place and turned on each evening at 7 PM along with the regular street lights in Singapore for a week.

Formula 1 has an enormously difficult task in trying to convince that world that it is anything other than a gross display of excess. Thanks to the organizers of the Singapore Grand Prix (incidentally that’s the Singapore Government) that task is now even more difficult.

F1 and the companies associated with it need to be smarter than this.

The Singapore Grand Prix will run until September 28.

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