PETRONAS-Mercedes: From Partnership To Performance, Innovation Beyond The Racetrack

By MUHAMMAD ZULKARNAIN MOHD AZMAN

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 8 (Bernama) -- “You couldn't think about the Mercedes Formula 1 team without Petronas."

That was how Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One (F1) Team principal Toto Wolff summed up a partnership that began as a marketing collaboration 16 years ago but has since evolved into an integral part of the team's identity and engineering pursuit.

Wolff said that from powering championship-winning machinery to developing fuel technology for F1's new technical era, Petronas' role has grown far beyond that of a conventional sponsor, describing the relationship today as a "completely integrated organisation".

"We hope that we make Malaysia proud also with that relationship. We've won so many World Championships and races together," he told Bernama in an exclusive interview recently.

Since joining forces in 2010, the partnership has increasingly brought together Mercedes' expertise in chassis and power-unit development with Petronas' fuel and fluid technology in the pursuit of performance.

Wolff said Petronas had become part of the engineering excellence behind the team, with each element required to work together to extract the maximum performance from the car.

"We have the chassis side that makes the car, the power unit side, which makes all of the motor and the electric part, and Petronas fuels all of this and propels all of this to success," he said.

Wolff also described the sport as "the fastest laboratory in the world", where the constant pursuit of greater efficiency, safety and performance has produced lessons that can eventually find their way into road vehicles.

He believes the connection is particularly direct in fuel and lubricant development.

“What we're racing today in Formula 1, its fundamental concept is the same that you will get at the fuel station.

“Obviously not to the limit like we have in Formula 1, but the product that is at the fuel station is a formula that has been developed in Formula 1," he said.

For Wolff, that connection also explains why Petronas' involvement with Mercedes represents more than a traditional sponsorship arrangement.

Mercedes builds cars while Petronas develops the fuel and fluids that help power them, with Formula One providing a platform where both can push their technologies under the demands of elite competition.

"Mercedes can sponsor the Fashion Week, or can sponsor a tennis tournament or golf, but we don't build any golf clubs.

"Fundamentally the product is petrol and fuel, and that is what we do. We use petrol, advanced sustainable fuel, to put in our Formula 1 cars and hopefully win some trophies and to make Malaysia proud," he said.

Interestingly, when asked about the most significant achievement of the partnership over the past 16 years, Wolff did not choose a championship, race victory or technical breakthrough.

Instead, he pointed to the relationships and trust built between the two organisations.

"The most significant part is the relationships that we were able to build within Petronas. So many friends, friendships that we have built, trustful relationships.

"That is always the most fundamental basis of a relationship, of a partnership, and of success," he said.

In the meantime, Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord said the changes presented an opportunity for Mercedes and Petronas to approach development not by pursuing the best individual components, but by creating the strongest overall package.

He said a major part of that equation is Petronas Advanced Sustainable Fuel (ASF), and for Mercedes and Petronas, sustainability could not come at the expense of competitiveness.

Lord said both parties entered the project with the ambition of achieving everything possible with conventional racing fuel and potentially more.

"We didn't see any reason that a sustainable fuel needed to bring any form of performance compromise and set super ambitious targets, and then it's just been a lot of work," he said.

Lord added that Petronas had to establish the entire supply chain required to deliver the product, stretching from feedstock to the finished fuel eventually used on the racetrack.

"Petronas have not just come up with a sustainable fuel, the entire supply chain to deliver that fuel from feedstock all the way through to finished product, all of that has had to be found, invested in, developed and brought on stream in order to be racing this season.

"It's been an enormous project, creating something that simply didn't exist when the rules were written," he said.

The undertaking required an intensive two-and-a-half to three years of research and development, linking Petronas' fuel technology team in Kuala Lumpur with Mercedes' engineering operations in Brixworth and Brackley.

Lord described the cooperation between both organisations as working "hand in glove".

"It's like one team. From the very beginning, we set very ambitious targets together," he said.

Those ambitions translated into long nights and weekends spent chasing the final milliseconds of performance, illustrating how closely innovation and competition are intertwined in Formula One.

Wolff pointed to the beginning of the hybrid era in 2014 as an earlier example of how the combination of power-unit and fuel development could provide a competitive advantage.

"In 2014, we've leapfrogged our competition with the introduction of the hybrid era and new fuel, and then this year, it's been a game changer," he said.

But the value of such development does not necessarily end when the Formula One car leaves the circuit.

Lord believes one of the sport's greatest strengths is its ability to accelerate technological development by forcing engineers to work against extremely short time frames while continuously pushing products to their limits.

"We do a lot of learning very, very quickly and quicker than other environments. We're very good at pushing the limits, so you find the weaknesses of a technology or a product very quickly," he said.

Whether working with Mercedes-Benz on hybrid and battery systems or Petronas on fuel development, Lord said the intensity of Formula One could significantly compress the learning process.

"They acquire within, say, three years the same amount of knowledge that maybe it would take you 10 years in a different environment. And that's the power of the competition," he said.

The knowledge accumulated in that environment can then potentially be applied to technologies and products with relevance away from Formula One.

-- BERNAMA