The recent French Grand Prix one-two by Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen marked the 150th time a Ferrari has crossed the Formula One finish line in first place, powered and protected by Shell. This shared history of success harks back almost 60 years to Scuderia Ferrari’s first ever victory, Silverstone 1951, with José Froilián González at the wheel of a Ferrari Type 375.
To achieve 150 Formula One victories with Ferrari is a fantastic milestone for Shell,” said Juan Carlos Perez, General Manager of Global Sponsorships, Shell Brands International. “It gives us yet another amazing statistic to add to the nine (FIA) Formula One Constructors’ World Championship titles and 12 Drivers’ titles that Ferrari has won with support from Shell. All the lessons we’ve learned and the boundaries we’ve broken whilst reaching this milestone have contributed to our Shell V-Power fuel and Shell Helix engine oil for the road.
On Thursday evening of the following race in Silverstone Regula Bleuler of Shell and Scuderia Ferrari’s Team Principal Stefano Domenicali, Team Manager Luca Baldisserri and Technical Director Aldo Costa joined members of the Formula One paddock in celebrating this milestone.
As early as the 1930s Shell was helping Enzo Ferrari go racing, so it was a mark of esteem when Shell was chosen to supply fuel and oil to the company he founded in 1947. Today, Shell is an integral part of the team, not only analysing fuel and oil samples in a dedicated mobile trackside laboratory at each race, but also providing year-round support at Ferrari’s factory in Maranello and from Shell facilities globally.
Shell’s deep technical partnership with Ferrari is an essential part of its overall design and development strategy, as it seeks to create better products for the road. More than 50 dedicated chemists, engineers and technicians work on the programme, using Formula One as an extreme test bed to develop new fuel and oil technologies, with the aim of transferring learnings into products benefiting Shell customers.
Looking to the future, Ferrari will have more support from Shell. During the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix Shell signed an agreement which takes the long-standing technical partnership through to at least 2010.
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