Sponsors

UOP

Universal Oil Products was established by Californian inventor Jesse Dubbs and Chicago industrialist J Ogden Armour in 1914 with the aim of developing and licensing processes for the petroleum industry. UOP has grown to be the world's largest process-licensing organisation in the world with more than 65 licensed processes in the hydrocarbon processing industries. In 1972 UOP decided to become involved in motor racing as the backer of the Shadow team in CanAm. This led to the decision to go to Formula 1 and UOP was the team's major sponsor between 1973 and 1975 by which point Shadow had become a serious force in F1. The loss of UOP money was a major setback and it never really recovered although Alan Jones gave Shadow its one and only F1 victory in Austria in 1977. UOP today employs almost 4000 people around the world and is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois.