Raikkonen the bus driver

McLaren Mercedes formula one driver Kimi Räikkönen took time out of his Australian Grand Prix pre-race preparations to get behind the wheel of a zero-emission fuel cell bus today.

Räikkönen visited the Australian headquarters of Mercedes-Benz where he met employees. They had the opportunity to hear Räikkönen talk about the team's preparations for Sunday's Grand Prix as well as get hold of an autograph.

Afterwards, Räikkönen drove a zero-emission fuel cell bus that is being used throughout this week's Australian Grand Prix for VIP track tours. The bus is one of two brought from Perth to Melbourne for the Grand Prix, to showcase environmentally friendly urban transport.

The zero emission fuel cell bus is part of a two year trial in Perth, Australia, which involves three Mercedes-Benz Citaro city buses with fuel cell drive by DaimlerChrysler. They have been operated by Path Transit, the local public transport authorities since September 2004, allowing commuters in the city to ride the zero-emission buses each day.

Fuel cell vehicles operating all over the world

The CUTE project was launched at the end of 2001 by DaimlerChrysler, the European cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Porto, Stockholm and Stuttgart, and several infrastructure companies. Three more Mercedes-Benz fuel cell buses have been operating in Reykjavik as part of the ECTOS project, which is also funded by the EU.

In addition, the public transport systems of Beijing, China, and Perth, Australia, now also include three fuel cell buses each. By the end of December 2005, these 36 buses had been in operation for more than 75,000 hours and covered almost 1.1 million kilometers in all.

-mercedes-