Fan reaction to last year’s announcement of McLaren’s strategic partnership with Gulf led to the idea to run a special one-off Formula 1 livery at this year’s Monaco Grand Prix.
Gulf was first involved with McLaren in 1968, with its latest multi-year partnership announced last July. That led to a flurry of responses on social media from fans keen to see the Gulf livery used in Formula 1, with some directing their wishes to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.
While the Gulf livery has never been used in F1 before, it is an iconic look in motorsport. It was most famously run on the likes of the Ford GT40 (pictured below) and the Porsche 917, but it also ran on the McLaren F1 GT-R in the 1990s.
“When we did the social media launch last July, the fan reaction was unbelievable,” said Gulf Oil CEO Mike Jones at an event for select media attended by The Race.
“We were taken aback, but the McLaren team was also taken aback by the response it got. We were having fans who had already created their own mock-ups and they were sending personal messages to Zak on social media saying, ‘why don’t you do this?’
“So Zak and I started thinking about the history of Gulf and McLaren and what we could do and it developed from there.”
The Monaco Grand Prix was selected because it is F1’s most high-profile event.
Recent examples of F1 teams running special paint schemes include Ferrari’s 1000 grands prix celebration dark red used at Mugello last year, as well as the white Mercedes livery used to mark the marque’s 125 years in motorsport at the 2019 German Grand Prix.
Brown stressed that using the livery is an effective way to engage F1 fans, although emphasised there are no plans to run it again beyond Monaco.
“It became pretty obvious that we should do something like this because all how iconic the Gulf livery is,” Brown said. “Then we tasked our teams with coming up with something that we thought captured something really special, and I think they’ve delivered on that.
“At this point we only intend to run it at Monaco. If you’re going to have a special livery, you need to keep it special.
“It’s something that isn’t done that often in Formula 1. Sometimes, when there’s variations of livery, it’s a little bit of a tweak here and there so I’m quite proud of the opportunity Gulf has presented us as McLaren to try and continue to lead the way in innovating now.
“We can engage fans in the sport. And I think this is a good example.”
In order to run the livery, McLaren sought the approval of both the FIA and Formula 1. The idea and final design also needed to be signed off by McLaren’s other partners, who Brown said supported the idea.
“It requires FIA and Formula 1 approval, so you submit to them your design and your rationale and they all loved it and approved it,” said Brown.
“It used to be something that the teams would have to vote on and that governance has changed, because it’s silly that some teams should have says over what other teams look like. So fortunately, it was an easy approval with the FIA and Formula 1.
“We obviously had to go to all of our partners and say we’re doing this special livery. They all love it. I think their brands really pop off the car.
“The car will get a tremendous amount of exposure, hopefully will be talked about, not only for a great result, but a great-looking racecar for many years. They see this as us continuing to innovate and try and bring some continued excitement and fresh thinking to the sport.
“And I do think given Gulf’s history it’s an obvious partner to work on to create an iconic paint scheme.”
The design itself was primarily conceived by McLaren’s design team, utilising the usual colours of the Gulf livery.
Although the interpretation of the design is a modern take, adapted for a single-seater, having been most famous for its use in sportscar racing, it is an instantly familiar look.
“The Gulf colours were way ahead of their time,” said Jones. “As a company we get many, many requests for racing teams to use it and it’s a really special iconic colour, so we only want to use it for special teams.
“Really, the McLaren design team came up with some ideas and we left that to those guys, because when those cars are travelling at that pace, we still want to retain the Gulf racing blue and the orange.
“It’s just absolutely stunning. You can imagine that in the nice weather in Monaco, the car round is really going to be a standout piece.”
As well as the car livery, the driver overalls and team kit will also switch to Gulf colours.
“If we’re going to do it, do it right,” said Brown.
“So it’s going to be a complete Gulf McLaren Formula 1 team in Monaco from garage to racecar to hospitality to uniforms, which I think will look quite spectacular.”
