That Petronas and Mercedes-Benz Motorsport are in bed together is not news but now the pairing have gone deeper under the sheets by extending their partnership from Formula One to the German Touring Car Championship (DTM).
With this, the oil and gas giant will now have a presence in DTM as their logo will be featured on the bodywork, racing overalls and helmets of all nine DTM AMG Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars and drivers as they’re flagged off for the opening race on 1 May at Hockenheim.
Furthermore, the Mercedes-Benz Formula 3 partner teams Mucke Motorsport and Prema Powerteam will feature Petronas branding on their Dallara Mercedes Formula 3 machines as well. This elevates the partnership between Petronas and Mercedes-Benz from discovering and nurturing talent in Formula 3 to the big leagues of DTM and Formula One. All the Mercedes-Benz teams in the three different racing series’ will be using oil and lubricants supplied by Petronas under the Syntium brand.
“We are delighted to welcome Petronas as our new DTM partner. Our existing partnership in Formula One is characterised by a spirit of constructive cooperation, coupled with the ongoing desire to improve performance. The fact that Petronas has extended its involvement from Formula One, with our Silver Arrows team, to the DTM emphasises the growing importance of this series. Just as in Formula One, the research and development work done by our partners at Petronas makes an invaluable contribution to the competitiveness of our cars,” said Norbert Haug, Vice President of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.
“We are extremely proud to extend our partnership with Mercedes-Benz. Building on our partnership in Formula One, this new relationship takes us to yet another level with our involvement in arguably the most competitive touring car series, the DTM, as well as the important single-seater category, the Formula 3 Euro Series. More importantly, this is a significant step forward for Petronas as we continue to pursue our commercial business objectives particularly in growing our lubricant businesses and extending our technical involvement globally,” added Anita Azrina Abdul Aziz, General Manager for Petronas Motorsport.
