Motor Sports Association chairman Dave Richards belie🎶ves Formula 1 lost technological relevance wh𒈔en it switched to V6 hybrid engines in 2014.

In a push to embrace sustainable technologies and continue to be more road-relevant in the future, 🦩F1 made the move from 2.4-litre nꦚaturally aspirated V8 engines to new V6 power units in 2014.

The switch proved controversial and faced opposition despite the championship’s greener push, with then F1 supremo Ber෴nie Ecclestone particularly critical of the decision.

S꧃peaking about the technological advances 𒈔in motorsport at the Autosport International show in Birmingham, Richards said: “Traditionally, we have lived off the fact that we have driven new technologies.

“Sometimes it’s not necessarily been a technology per se, but it’s a great marketing p🎉latform. Audi with the four-wheel drive going into the Quattro, the paddle shifts, it’s standard on all sports cars these days.

“If you go back the la🎀st decade we’ve lost that initiative. We’ve become entertainment, which is alright in itself, and there is a place for that, but I believe we’ve lost the initiative on technology.

“I think quite frankly it started when they introduced these wonderful engines tha💝t they have in Formula 1 today,” he added.

“They’re an extraordinary engineering feat with the hybri🎶d systems on them - the whole sort of way that they operate - and the day they were introduced, Bernie Ecclestone said they were terrible and they sounded bad and how terrible this was for the sport. We just didn’t get it right from the outset.

“We’ve got to be on our front foot now, and from a Motorsport UK point of view, we’re not going to just say there is only one solution like electric, that the governme🌳nt seems to be promoting.

“There are lots of solutions ouꦰt there. There’s hybrid solutions, there’s hydrogen coming, there’s a whole range of different technologies we should be promoting and we should be encouraging, and we’ve got to get on our front foot again.” &nbsඣp;    

⛦Asked about the r♉ecent emergence and rise of hydrogen powered vehicles, Richards added: “In my view that’s the way to go.

“Already Le♊ Mans have hung their flag to the mast and said for 2024, the LMP1 class, the class that will win Le Mans will be a hydrogen car.

“I think Britain, and the motorsport industry in Britain, has a great opportunity to pione💟er this technology and be at the forefront of it.”