Bahrain Grand Prix – Red Bull Racing’s fuel supplier ExxonMobil says that the rate of progress and development with their 2019 fuels has been accelerated by switching to Honda power.

According to Red Bull’s fuel supplier ExxonMobil, they have tested over 40 different types of race fuel over the course of pre-season testing in Barcelona. Such was the rate of progress, new formulations of Esso fuel and Mobil 1 oil were able to be used for the season opener in Australia. According to David Tsurusaki, Global Motorsport Technology Manager with ExxonMobil, this is simply down to how much faster Honda are at relaying information:

“When we’re developing a Mobil 1 lubricant, we will send Honda five or six variations of the engine oil for testing. Each one has a slightly different chemistry. What we are looking for is how the engine reacts to the changes in the chemistry. You want to find which is the best performing from a durability and efficiency standpoint. Then you go another step, producing six variations of that one to push the envelope a bit further.”

“The quicker we can get the data, the more incremental steps you can make. That’s what the major difference is from before. So at the end of last year, going into this year, we tested 36 variations of lubricants and 40 different fuel variations. Before, we only achieved a fraction of that because it took too long for Renault to carry out the tests and feed the data back.”

Tsurusaki elaborated to say that Honda have enabled them to fast-track upgrades already, with the next upgraded formulations already scheduled. He says that Honda’s approach has allowed ExxonMobil to work faster: “They’re super committed to getting things done and getting it done right. So much collaborative work has taken place already. We have worked very closely with them on our fuels and lubricants. The data feedback we get is exactly what we need to make decisions from.”

“They have been very open and very quick in running tests and getting the data back to us. In some cases, the single cylinder tests are running continuously with new fuel tests. If we send them a batch of products to test, they will get back to us very quickly. It’s incredible.”