F1 Racing: How has the involvement of Petronas changed since you came in as a sponsor of Sauber in the 1990s?

Giuseppe D’arrigo: The history of our involvement has been increasing commitment. It’s not a matter of branding or commercial success but one of technology – finding the extra decimal point that provides the performance advantage.

When we started with Sauber, 20 years ago, the main objective was to make sure that the brand was relevant and visible to the audiences of the time. Over the years we developed global operations and technical skills, particularly in fluids, and we thought it would be fitting to move up a couple of notches – to support our efforts from a technical point of view.

So we started this approach from the beginning of our partnership with Mercedes in 2010, but it was from 2014 onwards that it came to fruition in a very clear way. With the regulation change to hybrid power units we found a much better environment for our technology to really deliver the maximum performance.

Today we have nearly 200 engineers and scientists across the globe looking at developing the products, and about 14 of them are dedicated to the Formula 1 programme – that is the fuel, hydraulics, battery pack and engine fluids.

F1R: 70 years ago you could put aviation fuel in an F1 car. How useful is it to you that the cars are now running on products that are much closer to what ordinary motorists can actually buy?

GDA: The products are pretty close – the fuel is about

92 per cent the same, the lubricants about 95 per cent the same. There are some particular differences because of the performance requirements in Formula 1, and the regulations, but that is what challenges us to be innovative. And some of the specific solutions – for instance the same molecules – we found for F1 we’re now applying on the road, such as Cooltech solution in our Syntium product. Some of them require a tweak to be suitable for the road – but the thinking behind them, the technology, is the same.