"Both McLaren-Hondas finished in the points here in Monaco today – and, although that isn’t much to write home about when you reflect that McLaren has won the Monaco Grand Prix a record 15 times in its illustrious 50-year Formula 1 history, it’s encouraging nonetheless."
That was the summation offered by McLaren racing director Eric Boullier after seeing drivers Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button finish fifth and ninth respectively in Monaco.
While it was hardly the kind of result that McLaren has built its reputation and legacy on, it was still a big achievement in a period of significant rebuilding and reconstruction at Woking.
"Although we arrived in the Principality with hopes of being slightly more competitive here than in the end we were, we’re pleased that today we saw more evidence of the solid developmental progress we’re making, the result of the massive amount of hard work that’s taking place in both the UK and Japan at the moment," Boullier added.
The challenge to get McLaren back to the front of the grid after rekindling its partnership with Honda at the beginning of 2015 is an enormous one. While frustration has been evident at times – particularly courtesy of the passionate Alonso – there is a definite feeling of optimism around the team.
Perhaps one of the less-told stories is that of McLaren's technology partner, Exxon Mobil, who supplies the team with its fuel (under the Esso brand) and lubricants (Mobil 1) that are key to not only keeping the MP4-31 car ticking over, but maximising its performance.
"We know where we are and where have to go, and it’s very difficult for the fans to understand, but you cannot build a car like this from one day to the other," Boullier explains.
"It’s a cycle. You need to go through different stages, and I keep saying that we need the best of the best to be winning. We speak about the best drivers, the best cars, the best engine, but also the best fuel and the best lubricants and the best partners technically involved in the performance of the car. We need everything to be the best of the best."
And to ensure that the team can perform to the best of its ability, Boullier has worked to ensure that all of the different partners are on the same page since joining McLaren at the beginning of 2014.
"If I take the example of the engine: the combustion model designed by Honda needs to fit with a fuel that is developed by Esso," Boullier says.
"We have talked to Mobil 1 to say we need now to run the gearbox at this temperature, because that means they have to design a special oil which is capable of keeping the same quality for friction at higher levels. Everywhere you have to speak to all the partners and make sure they reach and achieve the targets you impose on yourself.
"Racing is all about being efficient. Any company, any business, anything in the world does tend to slow down. So sometimes you just have to bring it back to where you want it. So by doing this with McLaren, it helped the relationship and the co-ordination between Honda and obviously Mobil 1 and Esso. This fuel – it was a new record in six months from laboratory to track. So that means in some ways there is an effect on all the system."
The speed at which Mobil 1 and Esso are making new breakthroughs not only gives a boost to McLaren on-track, but also helps the companies themselves to continue to strive, much to the delight of Exxon Mobil global motorsport technology manager Bruce Crawley.
"A lot of hard work goes into this so when you do make a breakthrough which we have done and make a significant step forward, it’s really exciting," Crawley explains.
"For me, to bring a new product to the track it doesn’t get better than that and to know the performance benefit you’ve delivered. So yes, it’s an exciting time. The results, the car performance wasn’t up to it last year. However, we were working away really hard. We brought quite a few improvements in last year, and we’ve got more to come this year as well. It's great to be involved at the front end of a new engineering challenge shall we say. That gets me out of bed in the morning."
Even away from designing the actual car and bringing new upgrades to races, there is a fierce fight to innovate and bring newly updated products to each race – but even they can be outdated by the time a grand prix comes along.
"We have several development fuels which we took to the track which were superseded before we ran them," Crawley explains. "We’ve got six components in this car of several thousands, so if you just look at our prototyping, it’s a moving target. That’s what’s so exciting about it as well, it never stands still. You’re always thinking 'this has changed, now what can I do?'
"Somebody was asking about the influence of the super-soft tyres. You’re always looking to see what influence that has. Is that going to put more load through the gearbox? What will happen? It keeps you thinking all the time, have I missed something? It never stops."
The battle for McLaren now comes in preparing for the new set of technical regulations in Formula 1 due next season. Naturally, Mobil 1 and Esso are also keeping one eye on the upcoming campaign, with plans already well underway.
"We’ve already got the plan for the 2017 engine under discussion, so that’s kicking off fairly soon and we’re doing our pre-planning for that," Crawley says. "We’re already doing our modelling for 2017 engine. The collaboration actually that we have got going with Honda is at a level in terms of combustion development that I think is really going to push us through into a new era actually.
"From a fuel and from an oil point of view, so Esso synergy and Mobil 1, I think in 2017 we’re going to have a stand-out engine. I think we’ve got a pretty good engine this year as well, but 2017 there’s more to come.
"I think at the early stage of any new regulation change, there’s more low-hanging fruit generally than there is as you progress through. So we actually quite like regulation changes because it gives us more opportunity to find performance gains and it’s a race, it’s a development race to find those quicker than other people are doing it. It’s quite exciting from that point of view."
Besides racing, Mobil 1 and Esso also has to consider its products for road cars – but there is a surprising amount of crossover. Of the six products supplied to McLaren, three are near-identical to what you can pick up from the shelf at the petrol station, while the others enjoy commonalities with road-spec products.
"That’s very important for us as well, to maintain that linkage between what we’re doing in consumer products and in racing," Crawley explains.
"Same with the fuel as well. The fuel is not something that you’re going to get when you fill up at your local petrol station at the pump. The compounds that we’re using in that fuel are the same compounds and molecules that you’ll find in that fuel. We’re tailoring the composition of the fuel to get more performance out of it. That then also gives us understanding in terms of ‘if we can change the composition of the fuel in this way, we can get a performance gain’.
"So that’s very interesting in terms of looking at what we should be doing for a consumer product in the future, how can we improve a consumer product from the understanding, the learning that we’ve got from racing."
The race-to-road crossover is something that Crawley believes can be pushed more by F1 and even encouraged in the technical regulations.
"I think what I would like to see with fuel regulations is to allow some space to allow that development to occur that a will allow us to make some discovery that will take us into a consumer product, into the fuel that you put into your car at the gas station," he says.
"That would be the ideal from my point of view. If we make that technology transfer, I will feel that Formula 1 and racing has done a job to contribute to the wider society. That would be a nice thing to happen and that’s something we’ve definitely got our sights."
Between focusing on technology transfer from an F1 car to a road car and enhancing its products for each grand prix weekend, you can see the hugely important role that Mobil 1 and Esso are playing.
As McLaren's revival and fightback to the front of the grid continues, expect the hunger of its key partners to grow with that of the team. Their role cannot be understated.
