With Red Bull Racing moving to Honda alongside Toro Rosso from F1 2019 onward, it has made ExxonMobil’s work easier with just the one engine supplier.
In 2018, ExxonMobil had to juggle between Renault and Honda which the company’s F1 head David Tsurusaki felt made it harder for them to optimise the correct fuel to extract as much performance from the cars with different output.
With Renault and Honda at different levels, it did make it tougher for the fuel supplier – who have become an intricate part in F1 in today’s time with teams looking to gain even few tenths if they can through the correct lubricant usage.
Petronas has showed how much a fuel supplier can deliver towards the championship with Shell getting their way too with Ferrari and Castrol coming up with Renault. ExxonMobil lost out in 2018 when Red Bull ran with Renault and Toro Rosso with Honda.
But now with only Honda as the only manufacturer they have to work with, ExxonMobil is already encouraged with the progress they have managed to make, having managed to test many variants of lubricants and fuel in the winter test.
“By finding out the deal [between Red Bull and Honda] was going ahead as early as last summer, we could immediately switch focus on getting ready for 2019, rather than having to prepare in short order as per the previous season,” said Tsurusaki.
“It’s still been a lot of work but it was a smoother and more focused transition for the guys to be focused on one engine. It was also ideal to have had one year working with Toro Rosso, as we had good data for the first part of the season, and this allowed us to get ahead.
“Now we’re back to what I think is a normal cycle. Working with only one engine supplier – rather than two – means we are no longer sharing dyno time so we can speed things up.” Tsurusaki hailed the swift work by Honda in tests which helps in faster decision making.
“The data feedback we get is exactly what we need to make decisions from,” he said. “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. For example – when we’re developing a Mobil 1 lubricant, we sent 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 revealed that Red Bull and Toro Rosso used the new Esso Synergy and Mobil 1 race fuel in Australian GP which they tested in winter.
