Ex-Mercedes executive Paddy Lowe on Zero Petroleum’s ‘ambitious’ targets and plea to large corporations

When starting at Williams in 1987, Paddy Lowe used to joke in the office that, one day, he would find himself a “proper job” amid the glamour and pizzazz of the Formula 1 bubble. It only took one of F1’s most famous engineers 33 years, but in founding Zero Petroleum - the first British company to make a synthetic fuel in a completely fossil-free process - the 60-year-old finally has just that.

Lowe had one of motorsport’s most illustrious careers in the garage; the Cambridge-educated engineer was involved in 12 World Championship triumphs and was at Mercedes during their ascendance to the top of the standings at the start of the hybrid era in 2014. However, after a difficult final two years back at a struggling Williams, it was time for a change.

“I timed out at Formula 1, I didn’t have a great final two years at Williams and it was very difficult,” Lowe tells The Independent. “It was time to go and do something else, no regrets on that as I enjoyed my time in F1. It’s good to be doing something in the real world and it’s really needed. I’m enjoying running my own company, having been an employee throughout my whole career it’s nice to start your own business and put your best effort and knowledge into it.

“I’m really pleased with how that’s working out and I do think we’re solving some real problems.”

Those problems - as evidenced by this week’s heatwave in the UK - are no secret as the climate emergency continues to rear its ugly head. Zero Petroleum is one of the only fully sustainable and carbon-neutral fuel options which require zero changes to engines and mechanics, with the raw materials for the fuel coming from just air and water. It has already secured a Guinness World Record last November, as the company partnered with the Royal Air Force to launch the “first aircraft powered by synthetic fuel”. For Lowe, following a launch in January 2020, the possibilities over the next decade are endless.

“The first year was a laboratory year, the second year was a demonstration year and now we’re in the scale-up phase,” he explains. “We have the blueprint to build a production scale plant over the next two years and we hope to be operating the production of the fuel by 2024.

“From there, there is no limit to the scale up that’s possible, the plant will be the first of its kind in the world of that scale and that provides the basis to propagate across all markets and territories... I’m an optimist and we’re ambitious. We see the next decade as incredibly exciting but we’ve got a huge amount of work to do.”

It is a topic in tune with Lowe’s past life, too. Last month, Formula One said it was “racing towards” its target of making the sport net-zero carbon by 2030, which also includes a plan to have a 100 per cent sustainable fuel by 206 when the next era of hybrid engines will be introduced. A statement detailed: “With eight years to go, we are racing towards our target and aiming to show the next generation of fans how innovation and teamwork can tackle the challenges of our time.”

While Lowe remained tight-lipped on Zero Petroleum’s potential use in F1, he did reveal that they are targeting usage in motorsports down the line, while also imploring big corporations to back their sustainability targets with “hard money.”

“They need to start really investing proper cash in it, there is a lot of window dressing around,” Lowe says. “Part of the problem is fossil carbon going into the air and unless you’re removing or reversing that, you’re not doing the job and it’s all simply words. It needs to be taken a lot more seriously and backed with hard money.

“We’re incredibly ambitious to be a new player in fossil free petroleum world, this is an industry that needs to be as big as the current fossil fuel industry. So our ambition is to be one of the foundation members in that sector.”