In Formula 1, not all partnerships are formed to do the same job.
Some exist primarily for visibility. Some for hospitality. Some for brand alignment. And some, more rarely, are designed to sit at the intersection of marketing, business development, product innovation and long-term corporate strategy all at once.
ExxonMobil’s relationship with Oracle Red Bull Racing falls into that latter category.
As F1’s audience has grown, its digital reach expanded and its technical regulations moved closer to the direction of the wider automotive market, the championship has become an increasingly relevant platform for companies whose products live inside the engineering rather than simply on the bodywork.
For ExxonMobil, that has turned its partnership with Red Bull into something closer to a global business platform than a traditional sponsorship – a place where consumer communication, B2B relationships, technical collaboration and sustainability messaging all converge across the same environment.
“For us, motorsports makes a tremendous amount of sense as a partnership,” Katy Howell, Manager, Marketing Services & Sponsorship, ExxonMobil told Sector.
“It’s an opportunity for us to develop and test our products in the most extreme stage. But it’s also an opportunity for us to reach our consumers. It is a platform that allows us to reach our consumers all around the world, because we are a global company, and F1 is such a global sport.”
That dual role – laboratory and communications platform – is central to how the company views its presence in the championship. What happens inside the garage feeds directly into how ExxonMobil talks to the world outside it.
ExxonMobil’s presence with Red Bull is carried through multiple brands with distinct roles. Mobil 1 is the performance-facing lubricant brand most visibly associated with the car and its power unit, reflecting its long-standing position in high-performance engine technology.
Mobil, meanwhile, operates more broadly across fuels and lubricants in global markets, often forming the consumer touchpoint for the track-to-road story.
Above both sits ExxonMobil as the corporate entity driving the technical collaboration, sustainability narrative and business relationship with the team, ensuring the partnership spans branding, engineering and long-term strategy rather than existing in a single lane.
Grand prix weekends, Howell explains, are not simply about branding exposure, but about bringing customers and partners into the environment to see first-hand how ExxonMobil works alongside one of the most commercially sophisticated teams in the sport.
“It gives us an opportunity to really meet with business people as well. We get to show them what we’re doing,” she added.
“So our partners come, and potential customers come, and they have an opportunity to see what we’re doing and how we work with people. And the time that we spend with them in a sport like F1 really helps grow our business globally.”
In that sense, the paddock becomes a business development space as much as a marketing one.
For a company whose brands are already globally recognised, the value of that environment is not judged primarily in awareness metrics. Howell is candid that ExxonMobil measures the return on this partnership in a more targeted way.
“So ROI, we’re obviously looking at reach, you’re looking at exposure, you’re looking at brand equity,” explained Howell.
“For us, we can’t necessarily see that an F1 sponsorship is driving a huge increase in brand equity. But we can see that amongst our target customers, against the premium users who are interested in motorsports, that knowing our team affiliation with Red Bull drives an increase through the marketing funnel.”
The emphasis is on influencing a defined, premium audience and using the Red Bull affiliation to move them closer to purchase and loyalty, rather than simply increasing visibility.
That calculation is helped by the commercial strength of the partner itself and, as fan engagement across digital platforms has grown, so too has ExxonMobil’s ability to explain what it actually contributes inside the team environment.
“That’s one area where it’s great to be partnered with Red Bull, because they are masters of marketing, both in the cans business and as a race team. Red Bull is really just incredible at marketing and incredible at digital,” said Howell.
“The fan engagement is really changing the sport and it’s giving us an opportunity to share what we love about the sport…it lets us talk about our products in a new and different way, really engaging with fans.
“For us, we really want to share that we’re not just a sticker on the car, we’re in the car. And so if an activation can help share that story and bring awareness, then we’re happy.”
We were at the first F1 race in Silverstone. So we have 75 years’ experience in formulating fuels and lubricants to help champions win.
Katy Howell
Behind that line sits an unusually deep level of technical integration. ExxonMobil maintains embedded laboratories within Red Bull’s powertrain operations, sends technicians to every race and constantly iterates fuel and lubricant formulations alongside the team’s engineers.
“We really are part of the team. It’s truly partnership,” Howell said during a panel at the Autosport Business Exchange London.
“We actually have two embedded technicians that travel with the team. We have a lab at track and they’re pulling 90 samples per weekend of the fuels and the oils, both to meet the FIA requirements, but also to help the team find insight and drive choices.
“We had 75 scientists and engineers working on this challenge for over three years. They developed almost 100 formulations before we landed on the one that we’re going to be racing with.
“We have been doing motorsports for 110 years. We were at the first F1 race in Silverstone. So we have 75 years’ experience in formulating fuels and lubricants to help champions win.”
For Howell, this technical story links directly to a broader corporate one. ExxonMobil refers internally to the “dual challenge” – meeting global energy demand while addressing sustainability.
She sees F1’s move to advanced sustainable fuels and 50-50 hybrid powertrains as a visible example of that balance in action, and a platform to demonstrate how those solutions can work under extreme conditions.
Speaking to Sector, Howell said: “ExxonMobil has always been working on solving what we call the dual challenge.
“There’s still so much of the world that needs basic electricity, basic infrastructure. How do we continue to deliver energy to the world while also solving sustainability?
“That’s something that F1 is trying to tackle by showing different solutions, by moving to this 50-50 powertrain. And so for us, it gives us an opportunity to learn, to innovate, and to think about things and really talk about how we are investing in that.”
