Gulf Oil to Become Title Sponsor of Aguri Formula E Team

Gulf Oil International has recently penned an agreement with the Aguri Formula E team to bring one of the most iconic racing liveries to the all-electric racing series. The company will serve as the team’s title sponsor for the rest of this season, beginning with this weekend’s race in Mexico City. Team driver Salvador Duran and Felix da Costa will run the new-look cars.

The popular blue and orange paint scheme has been around since the 1960s, but its fame lingered in racing history when the same Gulf Oil-sponsored Ford GT40 bagged Le Mans in two consecutive years. Since then, the brand appeared on everything from Ford vehicles, to the Porsche 917, to the 1970 Porsche 908/3. In fact, Steve McQueen drove a Gulf Oil car in the 1971 movie Le Mans.

However, there is some irony in the company sponsoring an all-electric racing series, taking into account that it is one of the leading petroleum providers of the 1900s. A steady decline at the end of the century and a chaotic merger with Chevron left the company in pieces, but in recent years the Gulf brand’s marketing has picked back up.

In a statement, Frank Rutten, Gulf Oil International’s vice president, said that the company is hopeful to get more out of the collaboration with Team Aguri than just branding opportunities. He noted that the move mirrors the changing focus of the automotive sector, with manufacturers increasingly concentrating on the development of hybrid and electrical vehicles. Rutten also added that these new vehicles would need new lubricant solutions to ensure that they run at optimum efficiency and to support the evolving technologies that would offer faster charging, increased range and greater durability.

For the second season, Formula E enables teams to build their own drivetrains, hence opening up development on the car’s electric motors, the rear suspension, and the gearboxes. Aguri decided not to invest in this, thus it finds itself contending with the same spec car that every team ran in the first season.

The fifth race of Formula E’s second season will be held this weekend at Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, marking the global racing series’ first race in the country.