Our investment in research and development in Formula One™ has one main purpose: to develop better fuels, where innovations and technology from the track are transferred to our on-the-road products.

Did you know the Shell V-Power race fuel used in the Formula One™ Scuderia Ferrari V6 engines contains 99% of the same types of compounds as Shell V-Power road fuels available to customers worldwide? It’s all thanks to our Innovation Partnership with Ferrari.

EXPLORE OUR INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP

Shell's Innovation Partnership with Scuderia Ferrari is today, one of the most recognized and respected in the world of performance motorsports. Shell race fuels have powered Scuderia Ferrari to ten FIA Formula 1™ Constructors’ titles and 15 Drivers’ Championship wins. Below you can learn all about its history, peek behind the pit lane, and see how the extreme conditions of Formula 1™ help develop products for your car.

In this section

Shell’s Innovation Partnership with Scuderia Ferrari

Shell’s partnership with Scuderia Ferrari has been around since the first ever FIA Formula One World Championship™ series in 1950, making it one of the longest running and most successful collaborations in motorsport history.

Shell's role in the race

Shell's Track Lab team is trackside for every race, sampling and testing the fuels and lubricants as Shell helps power the Ferrari team to success.

From racetrack to roadside

Discover how the technological advances that power Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1™ cars find their way into your vehicle via Shell V-Power® NiTRO+.

Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc

Born in the Mediterranean idyll of Monaco, Leclerc arrived in F1 on a tidal wave of expectation.

Practically peerless on his way to the GP3 and Formula 2 crowns, he showcased a dazzling array of skills from scorching pole positions, commanding victories – even when his car caught fire twice at Silverstone – to an ability to muscle his way through the pack. Winning back-to-back championships also taught Leclerc how to handle pressure, another useful tool in the big pond of Formula 1 racing.

Leclerc may have quit school early, but he looks every inch the complete driver. World champions Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel have even gone on record to say Leclerc is the real deal – and it’s not often they agree on anything.

Stepping up to F1 in 2018, Leclerc showed flashes of ballistic pace on Saturdays and racing brilliance on Sundays, dragging his Sauber beyond its limits – and earning himself a money-can’t-buy race seat at Ferrari for 2019, stepping into the shoes of the Scuderia’s last world champion, Kimi Raikkonen.

There he immediately put the cat among the proverbial pigeons, unafraid to go wheel-to-wheel with established number one, Sebastian Vettel. A maiden F1 victory at Spa was followed by another a week later on Ferrari’s hallowed home turf of Monza. The tifosi had found another new hero – who then became the first man to out-score Vettel over a season with the Scuderia, a feat he repeated in crushing fashion the following year.

Out of the car, Leclerc is modest and thoughtful - but then he is on his own very personal mission. This exciting young talent is racing for his late father Herve and his friend and mentor Jules Bianchi, the F1 driver who died in 2015.

On the evidence so far, he is doing them both proud.

 

Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz

He’s the matador from Madrid racing royalty.

Entering F1’s Bull Ring paired alongside Max Verstappen at Toro Rosso in 2015, Sainz quickly showed his fighting spirit. A tenacious racer, Sainz puts the car on the edge as he hustles his way through the pack. No wonder he’s earned the nickname Chilli.

But the Spaniard is intelligent as well as instinctive, thinking his way through a race and into the points. This calm temperament follows him off track where he remains unfazed by the pressures of forging a Grand Prix career with a famous name.

Sainz is the son of double World Rally champion, also his namesake, and has brought some of Dad’s driving skills to the F1 circuit – junior loves a delicious dose of drift for one.

After following in his famous father’s tire tracks, Sainz has had big racing boots to fill – first at McLaren where he replaced his childhood hero Fernando Alonso, and now at Ferrari, in the seat formerly owned by Sebastian Vettel. It is never easy living in the shadow of sporting giants, but Sainz has shown the drive and disposition to deal with it. Vamos!

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