Gulf's Glorious Season Continues

GULF AT GOODWOOD

In Britain, the summer's largest enthusiast motorsport meeting, the famous ‘Goodwood Festival of Speed' honoured Gulf as one of the featured themes of the three-day meeting.

For more than fifteen years, Goodwood (stately home of the Earl of March) has been the venue for a unique combination of high-octane international motorsport and English ‘Garden Party'. The Goodwood Festival attracts more than 100,000 visitors, all of whom have the chance to mix with the legends of motorsport - both man and machine!

Mixing it with current Formula One cars, priceless Grand Prix cars, Indycars and Sportscars of all ages, was a mouth-watering selection of Gulf sportscars both past and present. These included the popular GT40, Porsche 917 and 908/3, Mirage GR7 and McLaren F1 sportscar (pictured above). These classic cars were also joined by the newest piece of Gulf success, in the form of the GT1 category winning 009 Aston Martin Racing DBR9. In addition to these Gulf motorsport icons, several other historically important Gulf-sponsored race cars were on display to complete the show. One of the all-conquering Gulf-McLaren M8 Can-Am cars, as well as two of the McLaren Grand Prix cars from the ‘60s and ‘70s highlighted Gulf sponsorship of the Marque's Formula 1 efforts during that period.

All of the Gulf cars attracted huge amounts of attention and especially when they were joined by some of the drivers who have contributed to Gulf's success over the decades; Le Mans winners Jackie Oliver (pictured below) and Derek Bell, amongst them.

Such was the strength of the Gulf presence that at this year's event that ITV (one the UK's two leading terrestrial TV broadcasters), devoted a five minute segment of their coverage of the festival to the history of Gulf in Motorsport.

A big thank you is owed to Jonathan Turner of GLUK for such a high profile Gulf presence.

WORLD AND NATIONAL MOTORBIKE SUCCESS

Moving from four to two wheels, the Gulf livered Ducatis, sponsored through Michel Majot, Gulf's distributor in Belgium, have again clinched a title for Gulf in motorsport.

In the French Hyper Challenge, Briton Sam Matthews rode to victory in the championship on his Ducati Hypermotard 1100S, entered by Ducati Chambourcy in the colours of the Gulf Racing Team.

On the world stage, France's second 24 Hour round of the World Motorbike Endurance championship, the Bol D'or (at the home of F1 in France, Magny Cours) also proved to be a notable weekend for the Gulf bikes.

Earlier in the year, a single Gulf-Ducati 1098R had been running competitively in the Le Mans 24 Hours Moto race, before gearbox troubles intervened and ultimately put paid to its challenge.

Further testing showed that the gearbox could still potentially be a weak spot. So for the Bol D'or the 1098R, as well as a smaller 848-engined Ducati, were entered. The latter ultimately proved to have the formula for success.

Despite the 50 BHP disadvantage over the 1098R, the 848's manoeuvrability and the reduced strain on the gearbox meant that the blue and orange machine was both quick and reliable.

Conditions for the endurance challenge were truly awful and unfortunately the 1098R succumbed to a crash early in the race. The other team bike (driven by Thierry Capella, Fred Notte, and Pierre Solari), also fell victim to the foul weather, when Capella came off the bike injuring his leg at around the 12 hour mark. The team lost 40 minutes repairing the bike, but of more concern was the fact that the team was now reduced to two riders.

This meant that Notte and Solari had to ride 90 minute stints instead of the original 60 minutes. However with the exception of an exhaust change in mid morning, the bike ran faultlessly and the brave riders ensured that the bike made it to the finish.

The end result saw the Gulf machine finish second in the Open Category splitting the two factory BMW entries in the process.

Team Boss Jean-Pierre Benveniste was clearly delighted, "Could we have imagined this before the start? The answer was "NO". He continues "but thanks to the Ducati 848, which went extremely well and ran reliably and efficiency, we took the podium place between the two official BMW machines."

A poster (pictured below) has been printed to commemorate Gulf's success on two wheels.

RALLYING

Gulf-sponsored machines have also been newsworthy in the world of Rallying.

In Poland, Gulf's official distributors - Oil Trading Poland (OTP) - have recently signed an agreement with one of the country's leading rally outfits.

October saw the unveiling of the first of two Gulf liveried Mitsubishi-Evos entered by Rentier Team Poland, which will spearhead an attack on the Polish National Championship in 2009. Experienced drivers Marcin Abramowski and Tomasz Trembicki will be driving the blue and orange machines. They have already gained reputations as two of the leading drivers in Polish Rallying and should help establish Gulf as true contenders in the country.

GOI Brand Marketing Manager, Sam Cork was present at the unveiling, held during OTP's Gulf dealer meeting (pictured above), and was very impressed. "The car looks sensational, and the whole team including the support vehicles will be running Gulf colours. This should give the brand excellent visibility in Poland aiding OTP to strengthen their sales further"

GOI Vice President International, Alain Dujean, was also a keen rally spectator, as he witnessed the efforts of the the Gulf-Mitsubishi of rising Finnish rally star, Juha Salo during Finland's round of the World Championship. Finnish Distributors, US Parts Finn-AM OY, had sponsored the car especially for the event.

Salo was both fast and spectacular, heading his category until a huge accident, right in front of the TV cameras forced his retirement from the event. Salo fortunately emerged unscathed apart from his pride.

Gulf's new Irish official distributors have also been using Rallying as part of their marketing plans, with Gulf branding appearing on the Citroen of Junior World Rally star, Shaun Gallagher. We will keep you updated as to his progress.

FURTHER ASTON MARTIN RACING NEWS

Gulf narrowly missed a position on the podium at the recent 250 Mile Race at the Nürburgring. The Gulf-liveried DBRS9 (pictured), driven by Thomas Enge and Robert Lechner inspired with some excellent driving in one of the rare races on the famous 20.8 km Nordshcleife circuit.

The car created a real stir in the pit lane when it appeared in Gulf livery and qualified third overall. When the race got underway the DBRS9 proved to be even faster, chasing down the leader for most of the race. A puncture on the penultimate lap saw the car finish fourth overall, only missing the rostrum by the narrowest of margins, but with the consolation of setting the second fastest lap of the race.

Gulf used the event as the centre of a global distributor promotion with Aston Martin Racing Team drivers, Enge and Lechner making a competition draw.  The draw saw Gulf distributors from Ireland, Nepal, Poland, Sweden and Turkey all winning VIP tickets to the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours.

GOI Vice President International, Alain Dujean, was also present to witness this stirring performance in Germany. "It has been an incredible season so far, with Gulf having a huge amount of success and using its motorsport programme to an extent unseen in recent years. Although the racing season is drawing to a close, Gulf is still busy with various activities that will take place before the end of the year. This will help to further promote the brand, its products and its distributors' businesses around the world."

Included in this report are a number of motorsport images to illustrate the stories. High resolution versions and a wider selection from these events are available on request.

For details of further images, or for more information on Gulf Motorsport please contact Simon Maurice on +44 (0)1753 650004 (office) or +44 (0)7771 597961 (mobile) or email simon@chicanemarketing.co.uk