In Search of Synergy: The Shell-Ferrari Partnership

There's an old tale about a former Formula One World Champion who once flew half-way around the world for barrels of fuel in the belief that this secret concoction would make him faster. Upon transporting his load to the next circuit just in time for the race, he went on to blitz the field and win comfortably. Although thoughts were that 'it was just his day', he knew it was really down to this mystery fuel.

A lot has changed since then. Now, the FIA, the World Governing Body of the sport, sets a mandate for the composition of the race fuels and determine what can and, more importantly, cannot appear in the liquids. However, the theory behind a perfect marriage of engine and fuel is alive today more than ever.

While a number of F1 teams have agreements in place to power their engines with a specific brand of fuel, there is no greater bond between manufacturer and fuel company than that between Shell and Ferrari.

The partnership can be traced back to 1929, when Shell sponsored the founder of Ferrari S.p.A, Enzo Ferrari, who at the time was still a racing driver. Fast forward over 80 years and it is a marriage which has seen 12 Formula One World Drivers' and 10 World Constuctors' titles won.

The unique collaboration between Shell and Ferrari is one which sees both the GT aspect of the company working with the motor-racing division. Jean-Jacques His, Head of Engine Development at Ferrari, emphasises the mentality of Enzo in the modern day company by describing him as "not only a racing driver in his early days, but a racing driver until the end."

It is very much this mentality which helps define the impact of the 'Prancing Horse' in the motoring world. With a clamour for more efficient engines and cleaner, better fuels there is a platform in the form of motor-racing for Ferrari, and indeed Shell, to push the envelope.

According to His, it is this linking of the Grand Turismo and Formula One entities which allow technological advancements.

"At the moment what we are looking at is for Formula One going towards hybrids," he explains.

"It's not that important to have hybrid motion in Formula One, because they [the cars] can't use that system in the same way that a road car can. But it is important as F1 gives a lot of incentives to develop new components and technologies for such systems."

His goes further, by saying that, without the Formula One test-bed, there wouldn't be as many advancements in road cars.

"I would say that we would not have had this kind of development on hybrid systems if we had not had project like the KERS [Kinetic Energy Renewable System] a few years ago.

"At the same time we've learnt how to develop a light-weight electric motor, a light-weight battery system, how to control that system on a car and how to have them working with an engine and gear-box. We have an idea that racing is improving components, which is more important in my view."

In many respects, this is the same case with the development of fuels. Scuderia Ferrari are the only F1 Team on the paddock to have a dedicated laboratory with them at all times to analyse fuels and oils and work on ways to improve race mixtures. By using a technique called GC [Gas Chromatography], the analysts are able to take a fingerprint of the fuel and ensure it is race-legal. They can also give advice on what levels to run the engine at.

Cara Tredget, Shell Technology Manager for Ferrari, highlights the importance of using this set-up, in order to not only ensure that each engine performs in terms of combustion and lubrication, but also in terms of seamlessly working with advancements in fuel technology.

"There were times when they would have engines for Friday,  Saturday and Sunday. These engines were only ever doing 400-miles in their lifetime. Now you've got eight engines per season. These engines have to do 2,500 km, and are revving at 18,000 rpm, so you're going to get a lot of wear metals in them.

"They [Ferrari] are trying to optimise every part of that car and they see us as a part of that, and we see ourselves as a part of that as well."

In a bid to make the sport more accessible to potential sponsors, the FIA dictate that teams and fuel manufacturers need to use new technologies to ensure that the sport eradicates ideas it is wasteful with resources.

In doing so, the regulations also state that race fuel needs to be 99% identical to commercial fuel, with the solitary 1% allowing manufacturers, such as Shell, to develop their liquids, not only for the finely-tuned F1 engines, but ultimately for the road cars of the future.

The FIA mandates are set so that race fuel must contain almost identical chemistries to conventional road fuel. For example the paraffins, classes of compound and octane numbers, all the way to the vapour pressures, must meet set specifications.

As Cara describes, though strict regulations bring with them limitations, they also allow for innovation.

"Last year in 2010 we introduced a new bio-component. Everyone was using bio-oxygenates, while we managed to use bio-hydrocarbon, which gives much better performance. We were one of the first to do that.

"Although it is a tight regulation, we are constantly pushing it to see where the limits are and trying to innovate ways to get new technologies in there."

Much in the way that a marathon runner wouldn't prepare for a race by eating curries and burgers, Ferrari engines need the best race fuel so that they can compete at their best. The fact that Shell provided multiple world champion Michael Schumacher with 181,000 litres of fuel during his Ferrari career, a statistic they are immensely proud of, is testament to the harmony of engine and fuel.

With agreements that, from 2014, Formula One engines will be reduced to 1.6-litre, six cylinder turbos, there is a set requirement that fuel efficiency will need to increase by 35%. Although this seems like a mammoth task, similar to that faced when engines were downsized from V10 to V8 in 2006. However, there is a sense, particularly with Ferrari and Shell, of excitement at the challenge, as Mike Evans, Shell Fuels Project Leader, suggests.

"You talk about technology transfer and learnings and one of the learnings was actually the speed of response and the development process," he says. "It's a challenge, but it's always interesting. It's good to have the challenges that have the applications.

"We are always looking at new engine developments and new technologies and are ensuring that our products perform well with those. Top end manufacturers take a lot of care, so they are reducing things like friction on pistons. If we can design our fuels to work well with this, then it benefits the customer."

While the future of race engines is more a work of development rather than innovation, the future of fuel is open to greater invention. As mandates dictate shifts towards 'greener' liquids, Mike sees the future from a different aspect.

"Bio-components and bio-compounds is the way it will go. It will never supplant fuels from minerals and crude oil.

"You can only grow so much, but the important aspects are that it is done the right way, to make sure it is sustainable. It's what we like to call the next-generation of bio-fuels, those made from straw rather than corn, which are the way to go.

"There will be a different fuel appetite to where we are today. There's a lot of work to go yet, but really we've just begun."

With engines and fuel compounds always evolving, the 60-year technical partnership of Shell and Ferrari can only grow stronger. And as drivers of yesterday were searching for the perfect marriage between fuel and machine, the modern day driver can now feel that synergy from the racetrack to the forecourt.

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