It has long been acknowledged that the extremes are where new product development is accelerated. The desire of man to colonize or utilize the whole of the planet has led to lubricants being in regular use at the North and South Poles, the hearts of deserts, at high altitudes and in space, not to mention wars. Each brought its own demands of load, speed or durability on engines, bearings, turbines and gears in cars, trucks, boats, snowmobiles, ships and aircraft.
In peace time one of the most important test beds for innovation has been racing. But anyone who assumes racing brings either a uniform challenge or a consistent one is mistaken. There are at least three major variants to consider: the type of race, the type of vehicle and the evolution of rules. Even among four wheelers, there are significantly different mechanical, thermal and chemical stresses faced by a drag car, a Le Mans-style endurance car and a rally vehicle, for example. So, how does one formulate for such extremes?
Andy Ogley has worked in the lubricants industry for 37 years and formulated racing oils in the 2010s. No matter the application “the role of the engine lubricant is still the same:cooling, lubricating — preventing metal-to-metal contact — cleanliness and performance,” Ogley told Lubes’n’Greases. “However, the racing application creates different environments. In Formula 1, engine speed is typically up to 13,000 rpm, with the use of pneumatic valve closing, and high operating temperatures along with more time spent under wide-open throttle conditions. Le Mans sees up to 8,500 rpm and similar time under wide-open throttle conditions as Formula 1.”
Using pneumatic control rather than the conventional spring approach to close the valve enables higher revolutions per minute by controlling air flow to the piston more precisely.
Ogley continued, “Rallying typically has engine speeds at 7,500 rpm, but the driving style is such that a much higher proportion of time is on-off the throttle as a rally engine is tuned to high torque at lower rpm, which provides high mid-range torque to provide power across a much wider useable rpm range.”
Motorbikes, trucks and speed boats bring their own demands when raced, explains Martyn Waterhouse of Syntol Lubricants, based in Ellesmere Port, United Kingdom. “Motorcycles based on production machinery, such as superbikes, present a significant challenge because of their shared crankcase, transmission and oil immersed clutch,” he said. “Great care must be taken during the product development phase, primarily focused on the desire to release power without impacting the operation of the clutch. Off-road motorcycles additionally endure severe shock loadings meaning a slightly different viscosity profile is required versus road racing machines.”
Rules Evolution
The technical regulations for most professional racing series change every year. The 2025 FIA regulations for Formula 1 racing run to 179 pages, about two of which cover the engine oil, as does a section of one appendix. However, it is changes to hardware that really affect the lubricants used. One of the biggest in F1 has been to limit the number of engines a team can use.
“Back in the 1990s, there were no limits to the number of engines a Formula 1 team could use in a race weekend,” explained Mark Wakem, who was part of Shell’s Formula 1 lubricants team for over a decade. “So, a top team would normally use three: one for practice, one for qualifying and one for the race. The race mechanics seemed to spend most of their time over the weekend changing engines.”
In the past 20 years, engine durability has become important. Since the 2004 imposition of one engine per weekend, through just three per season from 2018 onwards and then four per season in 2024 when more races were introduced, reliability became as important as raw speed. Engines, drivetrains and energy recovery units are no longer a consumable.
“The race distance is always just over 300 kilometers, but there are the drive out to the start, the formation lap and the possibility of extra distance due to a restart to consider,” said Wakem. “Also, some margin for safety must be allowed. As someone once said, in order to win, first you have to finish!”
Lake Speed Jr. has a lifetime in motor racing (his father drove in more than 400 NASCAR races) and hosts The Motor Oil Geek video channel, for which he has formulated and tested oils for specific applications. “The move to multi-race engines in NASCAR greatly changed the direction of lubricant development,” he said. “The need to maintain engine performance for multiple races stopped the steady march to lower viscosity grades.”
Thermal stability of friction modifiers is critical. “Where some friction modifiers can increase efficiency initially, extended use of friction modifiers with poor thermal stability can lead to decreases in engine efficiency over the course of a few races,” he said. “In modern professional racing — NASCAR, Indy, F1 — that is unacceptable. Oil formulation development now centers on creating and maintaining efficiency gains over the working life of the engine.”
“The lubricant plays an important role,” Ogley said, “but the overall aim is still the same: improving lap time.” One conflict a formulator may face is finding components that provide quicker engine protection when added to the engine but that also have sufficient thermal stability to still be active towards the end of the race.
Technological Change
Sometimes technological developments, rather than changing the rules, can cause changes in formulation. Coating surfaces in diamond-like carbon produced lower friction, harder wearing surfaces almost overnight. Suddenly, the need for anti-wear additives disappeared. Or did it?
“DLC made the requirements of the lubricant formulation quite different in those areas where it was used, such as the valve train. The lubricant’s cooling properties were important in preventing the DLC coatings from overheating. However, there were other areas of the engine where the more ‘traditional’ lubricant behaviour was still required, so it didn’t mean starting from scratch.”
Sometimes issues are raised by teams switching hardware suppliers. “Changing manufacturers can bring new materials,” Speed said. “For example, changing from Yamaha to Suzuki [for a racing team his company was supporting] brought different clutch plate materials. As a result, the baseline oil no longer provided the appropriate level of friction. This led to the development of a new oil formula tailored to the Suzuki clutch plates.”
The smaller engine and faster rpm of a motorcycle engine take some of the demands on the fluid to another level. “For top-level motorcycle racing we work hand in hand with race teams in a continuous development cycle throughout the race season, constantly looking for incremental gains in one area or another, usually to release more power without compromising engine life,” explained Waterhouse. “As an example, a race winning team competing in the British Superbike Championship overhaul engines every 1,200 kilometers, and in the last 10 years power output of the engine has risen by over 15% without an increase in displacement. A not insignificant proportion of this power increase is due to advancements of the lubricant.”
Developments in viscosity modifier technology “enable low drag in some parts of the engine, such as cylinder walls, and higher wear protection in other parts such as crankshaft journals and transmission,” he continued. “Friction modification technologies have also evolved to enable more power to be released whilst meeting the friction requirements of the oil-immersed clutch, bearing in mind that the clutch doesn’t last very long in a short circuit or sprint race bike in any case.”
“The use of friction modifiers is limited as clutch lock-up plays a crucial role in the function of the motorcycle powertrain,” explained Speed. “Also, the viscosity can’t be too low as the transmission gears rely on the base oil viscosity for protection. The only way to lower the operating viscosity of the oil without compromising the gears is advanced coatings on the gears.”
Formulating for the Enthusiast
While the big players and some smaller niche players formulate for racing as a fundamental part of their product development process — with significant cash input from marketing or external relations to support the brand — those who formulate for the enthusiast racer are developing product for sale.
“Club racers normally have neither the time nor the budget to contemplate an engine strip/rebuild after every race meeting,” said Wakem. “An overhaul during the period outside the race season might be the most that is acceptable, but better a powertrain that requires no more than normal maintenance for several seasons.”
“Motorcycle enthusiasts of the fast road variety want an oil to protect their pride and joy as much as possible, to last between recommended service intervals and perhaps even stay in the motor over winter when bikes are typically stored,” Waterhouse said. “So that requires a certain way of formulating that is slightly at odds with pure race performance.”
There is a significant variation in oil properties for different types of enthusiast racing, which include “low viscosities, low detergent-dispersant, high friction modification for short circuit/sprint racing,” he continued. “Higher viscosities, higher additive loadings and low or no friction modification formulations are deployed for endurance racing. Off-road racing tends to follow the same route as endurance racing in terms of product formulation and slightly higher viscosities.”
This has become a critical aspect of gaining advantage in a racing environment. Your correspondent was present at one of the Shell presentations to Ferrari in the mid-1990s of a custom rig that took the analytical chemistry lab into the pit lane during pre-season testing, practice and qualifying, allowing wear of all vehicle parts to be charted and understood. Later developments monitored oil degradation and contamination from fuel, debris and water.
Fast forward to 2018 and Speed founded SPEEDiagnostix, a fast-turnaround used oil analysis service targeted at car enthusiasts (not just racers), bringing similar data to every enthusiast. “Without quality data, race teams and enthusiasts have to rely upon speculation, which is problematic. With three-day turnaround, SPEEDiagnostix delivers results racers can use to make data-driven decisions before the
next race.”
Racing Ahead
And so to the future. The headline rule change in 2026 for Formula 1 is the move to sustainable fuel, which must be derived from non-food plant or animal ingredients, from genuine municipal waste or from sustainable carbon capture activities, according to the FIA Technical Regulations. However, the limitations on fuel flow to the internal combustion engine will be limited by energy content, not mass or volume, and the replacement of the thermal energy recovery system with more batteries could affect the re-formulation of oils to a greater extent. As ever, the evolving world of motor racing continues to challenge the lubricant formulator.
“Racing applications have been at the forefront of engine component [developments] with novel metallurgy and/or surface coating and surface finishing,” Ogley said. “This has given the oil formulator an early insight into the oil component behaviour and interaction well before these new engine parts are transferred into mainstream conventional on-road applications.”
Trevor Gauntlett has more than 25 years’ experience in blue chip chemicals and oil companies, including 18 years as the technical expert on Shell’s Lubricants Additives procurement team. He can be contacted at trevor@gauntlettconsulting.co.uk