Castrol to power the Audi Revolut F1® Team through the new era of Formula 1®
Castrol is co-engineering with Audi Revolut F1® Team to turbocharge engine performance and reliability
Castrol specially created a bespoke Castrol EDGE oil for the Audi R26 – precision engineered to enhance power output from a fixed energy input and data driven to deliver ultimate performance
Partnership extends Castrol and Audi’s 40+ years of motorsport collaboration, built through innovation milestones from quattro to hybrid endurance racing, and now into Formula 1’s new era
With Formula 1’s 2026 regulation reset coming into effect ahead of this year’s championship, Castrol has been collaborating with the Audi Revolut F1® Team to develop bespoke lubricants and EV fluids. In addition, bp is developing a bespoke, high-performance fuel that will power Audi Revolut F1® Team’s new hybrid engine and meet Formula 1® 2026 regulations. Both bp and Castrol are official partners to the team.
Experts from Castrol and the Audi Revolut F1® Team have specially co-engineered a bespoke Castrol EDGE engine oil for the Audi power unit (AFR 26 Hybrid). The finely tuned engine oil assists Audi in striking the perfect balance between performance and reliability. Under tighter energy limits, the oil plays into the team’s energy strategy – helping reduce frictional losses so more usable power can be extracted from the same fuel. At the same time, it helps the car finish the race, protecting hardware through endurance and wear control under extreme loads. Castrol and Audi engineers work in a continuous, data-driven development loop to engineer Castrol EDGE for ultimate performance* on track. This makes Castrol’s contribution to the Audi Revolut F1® Team a potential game-changer for its first season.
Chris Lockett, Senior Vice President, Castrol Technology, said: “This season’s engineering changes are huge, and completely reset the technology challenge. With electrification providing around half the power in the car, and much tighter energy supply constraints, engine oil is now an active performance component in an F1 car, a not-so-secret ingredient that could make a real difference to where teams finish this season. This is what our technical partnership with the Audi Revolut F1® Team is all about – enhancing efficiency and reliability of critical systems to deliver the best possible performance on the track.”
Mattia Binotto, Head of the Audi Revolut F1® Team, said: “Our technical partnership with Castrol goes much deeper than a conventional partnership. We have been working hand in hand since 2022, testing, analysing and refining together to develop bespoke fluids that perform in the toughest racing environments. But it goes beyond simply developing products: we will have a Castrol engineer with us at every race as part of our team, helping us prepare for races and debriefing on performance, playing an integral role in our F1 season.”
Along with its bespoke engine oil, Castrol will provide a full fluid strategy for the Audi Revolut F1® Team’s race cars and their most demanding systems – including gearbox oil, hydraulic fluid and ERS fluid. The partners will also work together to conduct analysis to understand fluid behaviour, protect hardware and sustain performance in the extreme operating conditions of F1. Beyond the car, Audi F1's Hinwil factory is testing Castrol’s advanced metalworking fluids alongside its SmartCoolant automation system to support high‑precision chassis production.
Castrol products have been integral to Audi motorsport programmes for more than 40 years. Speaking about this long-standing partnership, Michelle Jou, CEO at Castrol, said: “Castrol and Audi have a history built on winning and developing technology that can perform in the most extreme racing environments – the toughest testing grounds for technology that ultimately make it into millions of vehicles across the world. We have worked with Audi through many of their engineering breakthroughs, partnering on innovations like quattro in the 1980s, increasing hybridisation in the 2010s with the Audi e-tron quattro, electrification in Formula E in 2021, and now we are carrying forward our shared innovation-first mindset into the new era of F1®.”