Shell, the official supplier of fuel and oil of the Scuderia Ferrari invited Auto123.com to visit their small yet remarkably well equipped laboratory they set up in the garages at every Grand Prix.
The Shell representative explained us that the company sends out three people at every F1 race. The small lab of just a few square metres, basically a small container, is shipped to the overseas races in a jumbo set, along with team’s equipment.
Here in Montreal, Lucy Taylor and Gareth Lowe handle the numerous tests performed at the track.
“The Formula 1 fuel is highly regulated by the FIA,” said Taylor.
“Before the season starts, we send a sample of our fuel to the FIA to be used as a reference. Here at the track, we do our own tests of conformity, and so does the FIA. The fuel’s components provide a finger print that we check for conformity several times during the weekend. In other words, the fuel we use here in the cars must be identical to the sample we sent out to the FIA."
"We collect about 30 samples of fuel that we check carefully. We send about 2000 litres of fuel to every race, and we must make sure that the content of one drum does not get contaminated by inadequate manipulation,” she explained.
Lowe told us that there are no regulations per say for the oil. “It’s completely open. We don’t run conformity tests, but we assist Ferrari by checking if the oil does not contain tiny pieces of metal. Our tests tell us if there are traces of 15 different metals in the oil: aluminum, copper, magnesium, titanium, etc. We are talking about pieces that are only five microns big; invisible to the eye,” Lowe indicated.
A sample of oil is taken every time a Ferrari 150 returns to the garage. Within a few minutes, Lowe can tell the engineers if there something going wrong in the engine.
“All the data we collect at the races is sent to the base in the UK,” Lowe continued.
“Shell invests some 21,000 hours of work per year on its F1 programme. Since the teams are looking for reliability instead of power increase, the oil and the fuel we develop for F1 find applications in the commercial fuel. For example, one component we developed for F1 usage – FMT – is now found in commercial fuel. And in fact, you could run your car with the fuel and oil we use in F1 today,” Lowe concluded.
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| Lucy Taylor and Gareth Lowe in the lab in the paddock. (Photo: René Fagnan/Auto123.com) |
The Shell representative explained us that the company sends out three people at every F1 race. The small lab of just a few square metres, basically a small container, is shipped to the overseas races in a jumbo set, along with team’s equipment.
Here in Montreal, Lucy Taylor and Gareth Lowe handle the numerous tests performed at the track.
“The Formula 1 fuel is highly regulated by the FIA,” said Taylor.
“Before the season starts, we send a sample of our fuel to the FIA to be used as a reference. Here at the track, we do our own tests of conformity, and so does the FIA. The fuel’s components provide a finger print that we check for conformity several times during the weekend. In other words, the fuel we use here in the cars must be identical to the sample we sent out to the FIA."
 |
| (Photo: René Fagnan/Auto123.com) |
"We collect about 30 samples of fuel that we check carefully. We send about 2000 litres of fuel to every race, and we must make sure that the content of one drum does not get contaminated by inadequate manipulation,” she explained.
Lowe told us that there are no regulations per say for the oil. “It’s completely open. We don’t run conformity tests, but we assist Ferrari by checking if the oil does not contain tiny pieces of metal. Our tests tell us if there are traces of 15 different metals in the oil: aluminum, copper, magnesium, titanium, etc. We are talking about pieces that are only five microns big; invisible to the eye,” Lowe indicated.
A sample of oil is taken every time a Ferrari 150 returns to the garage. Within a few minutes, Lowe can tell the engineers if there something going wrong in the engine.
 |
| (Photo: René Fagnan/Auto123.com) |
“All the data we collect at the races is sent to the base in the UK,” Lowe continued.
“Shell invests some 21,000 hours of work per year on its F1 programme. Since the teams are looking for reliability instead of power increase, the oil and the fuel we develop for F1 find applications in the commercial fuel. For example, one component we developed for F1 usage – FMT – is now found in commercial fuel. And in fact, you could run your car with the fuel and oil we use in F1 today,” Lowe concluded.