F1: Williams team to reveal special Gulf livery throughout season

Asked during the launch of the 2023 Williams F1 car whether the idea of a full Gulf livery was ever considered for the car, Gulf Oil International’s CEO Mike Jones said: “Of course, anything we do in the future had got to be bigger and better than before.

“We have a lot of Gulf fans around the world, we have a lot of a lot of requests for our livery. We want our livery to be special.

“We’re launching a number of fan-centric activation plans. We always feel that Gulf is the fans’ favorite. And we really want our fans to be part of that.

“So, of course, we’re looking at different solutions for that, right across the Formula 1 spectrum. And we’ll be launching our activation plans in the near future.”

“We agreed on a presence that will run throughout the entire season, and you’ve seen that today,” Williams commercial director James Bower added.

“We think that’s going to be very effective. You have just seen the car, but there are other touchpoints throughout the team.

“You can think about key moments of a race, like, of course, the refueling, which links to the partnership and the pit crew and some other components. So, we are very much about how we take those iconic assets and bring them to life.

“I think there’s potential for those things to ladder up, as Mike said, into some broader fan activation. So, what you’ve seen today is really just the start, and you’ll see more unfold as the team is out on track and actually operating during the season.”

“We had a great partnership with McLaren and some real highlights,” he explained. “The Monaco livery, I guess, being at the pinnacle of that.

“But our relationship with McLaren sort of came to a natural end. We’d achieved everything that we probably could with the McLaren Formula 1 team, so we started looking in terms of what was next for us within Gulf for F1.

“We talked a lot to Williams around their plans, not just for 2023, but for the future. And we really believed that Williams are going in the right direction, and we believe there are a lot of good things happening here. It’s very attractive for us as well to have sponsorship across the Academy and Esports.”