In October, Fry would only tell me that Honda was going to do things in "a different way," and they certainly have. But it wasn't without outside help.

In 2005, the team began a relationship with Simon Fuller and his company, 19 Entertainment. Stateside you might know him as the man behind the American Idol TV show on FOX, but in the UK Fuller is well known as the man who founded the Spice Girls a decade ago, along with being the manager for Annie Lennox.

He also manages soccer player David Beckham, with the aim of making him the best paid sportsman in the world – something that he has appeared to have achieved with Beckham's new deal with the LA Galaxy in Major League Soccer. He has also brokered various sponsorship deals and commercial arrangements, and a U.S. sister company, CKX, owns the rights to the Elvis Presley estate. Fuller is a major player, in other words.

Honda went to him to put a little spark into its activities, and we assumed, to lend Jenson Button a little of that Beckham/pop star magic. We expected to see glamorous music VIPs hanging around the team motorhome, but that hasn't happened. Instead Fuller took Honda off in another direction.

Honda's brave new "world" takes F1 marketing in a whole new direction. (LAT photo)

His company Web site reveals his personal commitment to environmental issues, which extends to a close relationship with the sometimes controversial Greenpeace organization. Honda heard what he had to say, and he helped to convince this most conservative company to agree to take the unusual step of devoting its car to the environmental cause.

It's easy to view it as a cynical move, an attempt to get on the green bandwagon and deflect attention from the fact that the Honda marketing department has failed to bring in the big sponsors. Indeed, in explaining the deal Fry rather defensively listed all the companies associated with the team whose branding will feature on overalls and so on, but it was clear that none would rank among the top four or five contributors at most major teams. Just look at collections of big names on any of the other works cars.

But I think we should give the team management the benefit of the doubt. All forms of motor racing are open to criticism about their environmental impact, and the sort of pressure will only increase in years to come. Max Mosley and the FIA have pre-empted that by insisting that F1 goes in the direction of energy recycling technology and so on. The premise is that F1 has the best engineers and what they discover will drip-feed into road cars. Again, it's easy to be cynical, but it's a good PR move that ultimately can only be of benefit.

We've seen all kinds of companies jump on the aforementioned green bandwagon, but for obvious reasons car manufacturers are at the forefront, and what they do really does have an impact. A lot of Hollywood A-listers use their choice of personal transportation to signal that they care – although, ironically, Toyota is the brand of choice…

But what better way of spreading the green message than having an F1 team donate its entire car to the cause? Marketing gurus will give you detailed figures on how logos on an F1 car equate to hundreds of millions of dollars of TV and print advertising spend, so in that sense, it's a generous gesture.

You'd also have to say the management has been pretty brave. They must have known that they would lay themselves open to media cynicism, and of course that is what happened. In the UK, the national newspapers were quick to point out the disparity between the sport's image of conspicuous consumption and the new theme, and particularly of course the all too obvious fact that F1 cars use up a lot of fuel going around in circles.

Those of us a bit closer to the action could probably poke even more holes in Honda's concept than there are in the ozone layer. Just think about all those millions of miles flown in private jets by drivers and team VIPs who could just as easily go scheduled, but go private just because they can. This is a sport where a team boss would think nothing of sending his Lear back to the UK to pick up vital gearbox parts on a Friday night or whatever…

Honda's brave new "world" takes F1 marketing in a whole new direction. (LAT photo)

If you think sort of thing that is irrelevant, consider that the British media has begun a concerted campaign to highlight what it feels are unnecessary private flights taken by the British Royal Family, and particularly eco warrior Prince Charles.

And let's not start talking about the dozens of trucks that travel around Europe carrying paddock hospitality units (Red Bull alone uses 50 or thereabouts), the 747 freight flights that carry the cars overseas, the resources that go into making composite parts that are never used or are thrown away after one race, or perhaps worst of all, the electricity used to keep F1's 20 plus wind tunnels running 24/7 all year round. All of these things were running through my mind as I listened to Fry's impassioned speech in London on Monday. Fortunately, the general media doesn't know about that stuff…

Ultimately it's about what the world at large thinks, and not the media. This is something that if nothing else will bring F1 to the attention of people who might not otherwise pay any heed to it. After all those decades of association with cigarettes, it can only be a good thing to have something that can be promoted to kids in such a positive manner (and as I suggested earlier, why have we allowed arrogant Philip Morris to hang around and spoil things for everyone who has been waiting for a tobacco-free sport?).

And while many of the big names that have replaced the tobacco brands are blue chip, there are a lot of faceless corporate entities among them that aren't going to do much to arouse interest among young people.

It might be easy to criticize, but at least Honda has tried to do something, and if they've got attention and stolen some thunder from rival Toyota along the way, then good luck to them. Anyone who has seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth has to agree that publicizing the green cause can only be for the greater good. Let's see how it develops.

Adam Cooper is a Senior Writer for RACER magazine. To learn more about RACER, click here for subscription information.