Motul partners with the McLaren F1 Team

The 2026 Formula One season has just got underway, and it marks the return of Motul to the sport after an absence of more than 50 years – but that doesn’t do the journey justice.

The team Motul partners with is the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1® Team, which has been the F1 Constructors’ World Champion for the past two years. McLaren also supplied F1 World Champion Lando Norris with his championship-winning car.

Motul UK Country Manager, Andy Wait, explains how the partnership came about: “Motul has worked with McLaren before in various areas and, with the new regulations coming into force for 2026, McLaren was searching for a transmission fluid supplier. The technical closeness, built up over the years, put Motul into the frame.

“Motul designed a unique formulation and worked in partnership with McLaren to ensure that it performed to the required parameters. This demanded a period of evaluation that took more than nine months and dozens and dozens of tests.”

Motul’s Motorsports milestone products 

Motul is no stranger to developing products, however, and for almost three quarters of a century has been using motorsport both as a part of its development process and as a showcase to show how its products perform. Racers are always looking for a competitive edge and Motul says it has shown, time and again, that it can deliver this.

Motul has secured numerous world and national titles – both on two wheels as well as on four – and there is an old adage of “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” – but the company believes it goes much further than that. Motul argues motorsport has been the driving force for every major breakthrough in automotive lubricants.

In 1953, Motul’s 100th anniversary was celebrated with a motoring milestone: the world’s first multigrade motor oil. Until then, lubricants had to be changed in summer and winter, depending on where motorists were living. This new product could be used all year round, in a broad range of temperatures, thereby reducing lubricant consumption and maintenance. Motul says Motul Century established itself as a “must-have” for those competing in motorsport.

Success in motorsport requires constant innovation and, in the case of Motul, this next came in 1966 with the launch of Motul Century 2100. It was the world’s first semi-synthetic car lubricant, offering the advantages of castor oil but without the disadvantages of oxidation, varnish deposit and, not unimportantly, cost. The result was a product that withstood constraints and mechanical loads “10 times higher” than the previous-generation mineral oil lubricants.

Once more, motorsport played a key role in the next milestone product. Using vegetal-derived Ester Technology that had been developed for the aircraft industry, Motul created 300V, the world’s first fully synthetic motor oil and launched in 1971. The name refers to the 300 race victories that Motul cars had achieved.

Launched in 1971, Motul 300V made its public debut in Formula 1 in the March 711 driven by Henri Pescarolo.

Motul says 300V quickly found a ready market, and the now-expanded 300V range remains the company’s flagship product – and a proven winner. Just last year, through the Manthey Porsche squad, it added the GT3 Teams’ World Title in the FIA World Endurance Championship to its list of honours. The season also included the team’s second consecutive GT3 class victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Partnership with McLaren 

Given this success, Motul says it should come as little surprise that F1 is now only part of the picture with McLaren. Motul announced an extension of its technical tie-up with McLaren as it moves into the top echelon of Sportscar Racing in 2027. This means that Motul is its partner as the team enters the Hypercar Category of the World Endurance Championship.

Motul’s endurance legacy extends beyond the circuit too, with a presence in other long-distance challenges, such as the Dakar Rally. This know-how will now directly support McLaren Endurance Racing as Motul applies its technical and research and development capabilities to co-create bespoke lubricants for the Hypercar programme.

Motul has ensured its race-bred technology is incorporated into its core product range too, with fully-synthetic lubricants part of everyday motoring. The company believes its expertise lies in developing tailor-made fluid solutions that deliver reliability and performance over time, whether on the road or in the heat of competition.