Originally Posted By: Garak
All F1 lubes (and fuels) are bespoke by their petroleum partners. There are numerous references to this, such as at the F1 Dictionary, the Autosport and Motosport official magazine sites, oil companies' sites, and likely even team sites. One can even look at the technical regulations for some insight into fuels.
Shell's relationship with Ferrari is fairly long standing. Esso/Mobil deal with McLaren and has for many years. Total deals with Renault and Red Bull. It would be nice if Castrol would get back into the game. The F1 Dictionary gives a partial list of various petroleum companies' involvements in the sport.
Unlike a few other motorsports, what the teams use is what is provided to them by their petroleum partner, since the petroleum partner is required to create those lubes and fuels for them as part of the sponsorship deal.
It would be beneficial for Castrol to go back, since we know that participating in F1 always makes products better. Bridgestone benefited tremendously from participation in F1, as well as Michelin. GY pulled out when they were in war with Bridgestone, and you can see their products deteriorating with time. I was reading article where Michelin still trickles down acquired know-how from F1 days to new products. Pirelli is now doing same. There is no doubt that Mobil1, Shell, Petronas are doing same. I bet all GTL came out from F1.