Renault has confirmed BP and Castrol as its new suppliers of fuel and lubricants for the 2017 season, replacing Renault’s long-term partner Total.
“With the new aerodynamic regulations for the 2017 Formula 1 season, power sensitivity will increase,” said team boss Cyril Abiteboul. “Therefore fuels and lubricants will make an even greater difference to the overall performance of the car than they have since the new power unit regulations have been introduced in 2014.”
“The teams at BP and Castrol are very excited by the challenges offered by Formula 1 and we are confident they will help us achieve our ambitions for our new car in 2017 and beyond.”
Renault Sport president Jerome Stroll said: “The return of BP and Castrol, brands with such strong heritage in motorsport, is very good news and opens new opportunities for our Formula One team.”
“BP’s commitment highlights the ongoing appeal of Formula One to major multinational companies. We are very proud and motivated to have a technical partner and sponsor of this calibre.”
Renault last worked with BP and Castrol in 1997, when their engines powered Jacques Villeneuve and Williams to the 1997 drivers’ and constructors’ championships.
Red Bull, who will continue to use Renault’s engines with TAG Heuer branding, have already announced their own move away from Total to use ExxonMobil’s products.
2017 F1 season
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Matthijs (@matthijs)
26th January 2017, 11:39
Green livery please!
Matthijs (@matthijs)
26th January 2017, 11:40
Sorry, they’re most likely no title sponsors.
G. (#F1insperations) (@greggriffiths)
26th January 2017, 12:34
Sorry i disagree – as much as i love green – only if your bringing back the Jordan 7up livary – renult can get another year out of there current livery style
sethje (@seth-space)
26th January 2017, 13:17
like this?
http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/l.aspx?k=18556
sethje (@seth-space)
26th January 2017, 13:18
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
26th January 2017, 15:47
Renault just shows how little resources they are willing to put in f1. They took the risk but they are not willing to do it properly, they have to be reliant on sponsorship money, it is particularly strange considering that Total is renault’s.
Gaston (@gastonmazzacane)
26th January 2017, 18:25
No it’s not?
anon
26th January 2017, 20:24
@gastonmazzacane, you’ll find that Pennyroyal Tea has a rather strange way of interpreting reality, to the point where some of his posts only seem to make sense if you assume that he was at least half drunk when he wrote them. By his logic, since every single team on the grid is reliant on sponsorship funds, they must all be unwilling to do the job properly and haven’t bothered putting any resources into F1…
BasCB (@bascb)
26th January 2017, 21:02
Total is a french company that was established as Compagnie française des pétroles (CFP) and later used the brand Total. Since the 1980′ it merged with Petrolfina and with Elf. Elf used to be controlled by the French state ages ago (just like Renault), and that is the reason there was traditionally a long standing partnership between Renault and Elf, that transferred to Total when the two companies merged in 2000 @peartree
That Renault is relying on sponsorship money to run the team is as much logical as Williams, McLaren and Red Bull are, as Mercedes are. The only one who could probably live from the sponsor ship money alone, but doesn’t, is Ferrari, who get their unfair share up front.
sunny stivala
27th January 2017, 9:24
It’s all down to just prejudice.
Facts show that 4 teams get historical special payments.
FERRARI payment is $70M and not $80/90/100m, FERRAI gets $105M in total, Mercedes and Red Bull gets $75M extra, mclaren gets $32M and Williams $10M. in realty FERRARI gets $30M more than Mercedes and Red BULL.
And by the way re the latest aim of the new F1 owners, does anybody think all 5 are going to give-up that extra money?.
ef 1
7th February 2017, 12:32
marlboro gives millions to run ferrari …
Arrows98 (@arrows98)
26th January 2017, 12:04
good ol’Jacques, still winning that 1997 drivers’ championships 20 years later [little typo there, @keithcollantine… ;)]
on a more serious note, where does that leave McLaren? and will RB suffer for not using the same fuel as Renault?
Mark G (@)
26th January 2017, 12:23
Maclaren supposedly suffered for not using Petronas fuels / lubricants when they had the Mercedes power unit in 2014, so I imagine Red Bull might experience some difficulty.
Having said that Red Bull have proved far more capable than Maclaren over the past few years so one would expect them to experience fewer problems.
sunny stivala
26th January 2017, 12:58
It was not a matter that McLaren was less capable, it all had to do with Mercedes virtually running their engine used in the McLaren chassis (controlling the software), that is why Ron Dennis said that a customer team have no chance of winning a championship.
anon
26th January 2017, 20:31
sunny stivala, the thing is, because McLaren had already announced that they were going to be switching to Honda, Mercedes was reluctant to give McLaren anything more than the least amount of access to their power unit that they required over concerns that McLaren might pass information on Mercedes’s power unit over to Honda. McLaren themselves accepted that Mercedes was going to restrict their access to the 2014 power unit very heavily due to the potential for industrial espionage, so it’s not really representative of the level of access that they would have had under more normal circumstances.
sunny stivala
26th January 2017, 21:36
anon, yours are all valid points, but lets not trip in our own feet.
FIA rules say: a manufacturer may use and supply only one engine specification during a season as homologated. a homologated engine means the “hardware” and not the software, the FIA does not speak of software, software is the key to engine performance and the way it functions.
as to the Renault/Red Bull/maclaren fuel/oil suppliers and what Abiteboul have been saying, Honda has so far only supplied one team and so have only used one fuel/oil supplier, FERRARI and their customers has only used one fuel/oil supplier, with STR having been given a permission to use year old FERRARI engine specification having to use a year old fuel/oil specification as dictated by FERRARI regardless of their fuel/oil contract stickers on the car. according to Andy Cowell all Mercedes engines on the grid was of the same hardware and used the same fuel/oil supplier, and this also regardless of fuel/oil sponsors stickers on the cars. that leaves Renault/ RBR and STR (when STR were using the Renault engine), again I am sure that regardless of fuel/oil stickers on cars, all Renault engines were running on the same fuel and oil. the current combustion technology is such that it is not possible to develop an engine to run on two different fuel/oil specifications without combustion design differences in specification , which in turn is not supposed to be permitted by the rulers.
G. (#F1insperations) (@greggriffiths)
26th January 2017, 12:33
intersting point there –
will be interetsing to see – hope renult can make somehting of this.
sunny stivala
26th January 2017, 13:31
According to Abiteboul Renault will be working with two fuel/oil suppliers, Renault engine in Renault car will be using BP, while Renault engine in Red Bull car will be using Exxon Mobil. he is quoted as saying “there are a number of engine suppliers who have been very successful in the past with two homologations”. First there are only four engine suppliers, secondly, who was using two homologations was breaching the FIA rules, as a supplier can only use one specification engine as homologated.
OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
26th January 2017, 13:32
You managed to mispell “interesting” twice in one post.
Interesting.
Sorry for the banter.
Mark G (@)
26th January 2017, 12:18
I thought Mclaren had agreed a deal with BP/Castrol (going by the sponsorship on the team gear Vandoorne was wearing recently.)
Surely BP won’t be partnered with both Renault AND Honda?!
Deej92 (@deej92)
26th January 2017, 14:43
Apparently so but the McLaren deal is said to “have a much smaller commercial aspect” than this one.
BasCB (@bascb)
26th January 2017, 21:06
It seems that indeed both of them do have a deal with BP/Castrol now, yes. Although I am sure that the Renault deal will be far more important to BP, as that has ties to the larger automotive company as their preferred supplier.
I do seem to remember that Honda used to have some long standing deals with Castrol, but its probably smaller than what they get from Renault/Nissan.
Josh
26th January 2017, 12:37
Coming from BP they’ll need to check for seawater and salt before they pour it into the Renault.