Chasing perfection: How ExxonMobil and Oracle Red Bull Racing achieved a record-breaking 2023 Formula One season
Key takeaways:
Oracle Red Bull Racing, ExxonMobil, and Honda achieved the near impossible in 2023 – dominating the Formula One season by winning 21 out of 22 races.
How did these three pioneering brands come together to break records previously held steady for nearly 40 years? Let’s go back to the beginning.
The beginning
In racing, every second counts. In fact, the difference between pole and 10th place can often be two or three tenths of a second – meaning teams must constantly work to find new ways to outperform the competition.
A race engine is a piece of art, a symphony of 1,000 pieces. And when you have drivers like Max Verstappen and Sergio “Checo” Perez in your lineup, you absolutely need your mechanical parts performing at the highest level. So, in 2017, ExxonMobil and Oracle Red Bull Racing established a technical partnership in pursuit of having every component of every race car deliver at its full potential.
During the season, ExxonMobil works closely with Oracle Red Bull Racing and Honda, the team’s engine partner, to test fuels for quality control and analyze the lubricants for any reliability issues. This testing, which occurs dozens of times each week, ensures there are no signs of higher-than-normal friction, which would slow down a car, or any signs of degradation or leaks that would prevent the car from running at peak performance.
The team took another look under the hood. And for 2021, a new engine design was put forward.?
“This engine will be not just an iteration – it will be a redesign,” said Tomek Young, ExxonMobil Global Motorsports Technology Manager. “One of the challenges that we dealt with was that because it’s smaller, it’s working harder, the temperatures generated ... the stresses are more.”
Improving key areas of friction and temperature rating makes cars?more aerodynamic –? meaning they can go faster. In 2022, after months in the lab, a breakthrough in fuel specification led to the introduction of a new E10 fuel containing ethanol.
That fuel had the new Honda engine roaring and pushed the team to innovate even faster.
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?Discovering a new molecule and breaking records
Another step was to develop a next-generation engine oil. Ultimately, our scientists discovered a key molecule that would lead to Oracle Red Bull Racing’s record-breaking performance.
With new oils, fuels, and lubricants working in concert in our updated RB19 race car, we saw immediate – and unprecedented – results. We opened the 2023 Formula One season with a victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Verstappen, behind the wheel, led every turn of the 57-lap race.
The team’s success continued race after race, until their sole loss of the year, in Singapore. In the chase for perfection, this was a wake-up call.
Additional tweaks, improvements, and modifications led to a comeback win in Azerbaijan – with Pérez and Verstappen finishing one-two. Followed by another one-two finish in Miami.
In addition to his incredible winning streak, Max Verstappen claimed the 2023 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship, and the team won the 2023 Formula One Constructors Championship.
“I don't think anybody could have ever imagined the kind of success that we saw in 2023,” commented Christian Horner, CEO and Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing. “Winning all but one race was an outstanding performance. We broke records that had stood since 1988.”
Ready for what’s next
Oracle Red Bull Racing, ExxonMobil, and Honda are thrilled with the achievements to date. But the pursuit of perfection never stops, so we’re preparing for what’s next: partnering on a fuel specification to meet new technical regulations ahead of the 2026 Formula One season and Oracle Red Bull Racing Ford Powertrains. ?
More to come around the hair-pin corner. Stay tuned.
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