Formula 1 World Champ and celebrity sportsman Jenson Button has been declared the largest polluting celebrity motorist.

Theoretically the planet’s top driver does little to promoted eco-friendly motoring given that the F1 industry is a multi-billion dollar gasoline waster, but Button has made headlines after City Car Club declared that the champ has a fleet of vehicles for getting around which average 383.1g/km of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This number is roughly triple that of a standard hatchback car.

The calculations do not take into account the stupendous amounts of fuel used by his day job, where the practice of running several F1 behemoths regularly blasts away enough gas to power an average family for a year.

The survey did reveal that Jenson does have a Smart car in his personal stable which afford a slight drop in overall output but this tends to be somewhat negated by his fabled Bugatti Veyron. The prize possession of his dozen strong collection of cars the Bugatti, classified as a hypercar, pumps out a massive 574g CO2/km. This, by definition, places it off the scale used by City Car Club to rank the worst offenders in Britain.

Elsewhere on the list, speed-freak song star Jay Kay, of Jamiroquai fame, came in second while another Veryon owner, Simon Cowell, placed third. Top Gear hosts Richard Hammond (in 8th) and Jeremy Clarkson (10th) also made the cut although mild-mannered James May was well of the pollution radar. The organisers of the survey have offered Button and invitation to join one of their car clubs if he decides to reduce his considerable output.