The date burns in the mind of Formula One executives and tobacco manufacturers like a glowing snout. On October 1 2006, the chequered flag will fall on cigarette sponsorship of the sport, and possibly not only in Europe.
Now, with the opening of the 1999 season at Melbourne’s Albert Park this weekend, Formula One must decide whether to wean itself off its addiction to tobacco or go cold turkey in seven years’ time.
Formula One is the ultimate in subliminal advertising. The cars, looking very much like cigarette packets, flash before your eyes at speeds of up to 320kph. Ciggy ads have come a long way since Marlboro Man.
Now the vexed question of baccy money, worth about 500-million a year to this grown-up version of Scalextric run by the elfin-genius Bernie Ecclestone, has been given a new and urgent impetus with the arrival of British American Racing (BAR). BAR is the new kid on the grid and, unlike most newcomers, will not be starting at the back.
With bundles of British American Tobacco money sloshing about in their coffers, an estimated 300-million over five years, and with former world champion Jacques Villeneuve in one car and highly-rated Brazilian newcomer Ricardo Zonta in the other, BAR are serious podium material. While they may struggle to keep up with McLaren and Ferrari, they could be right up there with Jordan, Williams and Benetton.
It is what they represent, however, that is even more important. This is not so much a brand-new team as a new brand team. Confident and aggressive, they represent the tobacco industry’s resistance to approaching government legislation. They could also point the way for other tobacco manufacturers to buy into teams. If we have Benetton, why not a Marlboro or a Benson & Hedges team?
BAR has already fallen out with the sport’s governing body, the FIA, over dual branding. According to the rules, one team means one set of stickers. But when the BAR cars were unveiled, they had two different liveries, one in red-and-white Lucky Stripe, the other a nice dark- blue 555 number.
Grudgingly, BAR’s owner Craig Pollock came up with a compromise, a single design advertising both brands. But he has lodged an official complaint with European Union competition commissioner Karel van Miert over what he regards as the FIA’s anti-competitive stance. Now he has been summoned to appear before the FIA’s world council five days after the Australian Grand Prix.
BAR has been a considerable embarrassment to the FIA, which is anxious to be seen as sympathetic to the anti-tobacco lobby, while at the same time orchestrating a slow retreat from its dependence on the industry’s funds.
At least BAR has given the FIA, accused of being submissive to its tobacco sponsors by the European Commission, the chance to flex its muscles and show it means business.
“We feel their attempt to run two tobacco sponsors is going too far,’ says the FIA president Max Mosley over the issue of dual branding. “Several governments make concessions and allow teams to run with tobacco advertising but one mustn’t overdo it.”
Most sports are already severing their connections with tobacco sponsorship, following an EU ruling in 1997. The Europe- wide tobacco advertising ban comes into force in 2002 but Formula One, with its peculiar reliance on this income, was given a further four years to kick the habit.
Then there is the Ecclestone Factor. A Suffolk trawler captain’s son, who started by selling motorcycle spares out of his mother’s kitchen, he is arguably the cleverest impresario in sport, worth an estimated 250- million. Today, with his persevering Beatles haircut, he runs Formula One and, having come to the rescue of several teams over the years, he is repaid by their loyalty.
Without tobacco money, Ecclestone knows Formula One would have to settle for less money from other sponsors. Most teams line up behind him, although Jackie Stewart, articulate and influential, likes to maintain an independent voice on the issue.
Ecclestone, a non-smoker, has already outwitted several politicians worldwide and in Britain has taken full advantage of a government which has proved notoriously vulnerable to the lobby system.
A clause in his contracts with each Grand Prix venue allows him to withdraw the race if local laws threaten sponsorship. He has threatened to move from Europe towards the Far East. “We’d have to slim down a little bit our European operation and move where we don’t have a problem.”
When Belgium announced a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in 1997, Ecclestone said the country could lose its Grand Prix. According to one study, 1,2- billion francs pour into the poor Walloon region of southern Belgium each year in the week of the Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix. Other countries took note.
This year, in August, the Belgian Grand Prix will be held as usual. So will the Canadian, in June, Ecclestone having forced the government there to exclude Formula One from its tobacco ban on all sports.
In theory, a move away from Europe is plausible. Of the 16 Grands Prix, 11 are held in Europe, nine in EU countries. But next year the United States will stage a Grand Prix, China is likely to stage one and Argentina and South Africa could also return to the scene.
If four races were taken away from the tobacco-conscious EU, the union’s share of the Grand Prix calendar would be down to five, of which three, those held in Britain and Germany (voluntarily) and France (by law) do not carry any cigarette advertising.
With countries such as Korea, India and Indonesia fighting for a race, it would not be difficult for Ecclestone to lose more races in Europe.
The FIA claims there is already an imbalance, with 70% of the world television audience for Formula One based in the Asia/ Pacific region.
It also points out that those EU countries that would ban tobacco-sponsored events would carry television pictures of races from the rest of the world, advertising more brands than you could shake a dried leaf at.
The politically adroit Mosley says: “These events would still be televised globally and be seen throughout the EU. There would be no reduction in the level of exposure to tobacco sponsorship.”
Mosley claims tobacco sponsorship in Formula One does not encourage young people to take up smoking but merely makes existing smokers change their brand. He adds: `We have launched an inquiry, which will be judged by an independent assessor, and if it can be shown that tobacco company logos appearing at Formula One races cause people to start smoking, the case for the total elimination of tobacco sponsorship would be overwhelming.”
In that case, the FIA has said it would bring forward the date of the tobacco ban.
Mosley sounds a little peeved with governments when he says: “The truth is that many governments, if not all of them, know perfectly well that banning the advertising of tobacco products will not reduce consumption.
“They also know that tobacco is a substantial source of taxation income. At the same time, they want to be politically correct and be seen to be taking action against smoking.
“In banning advertising, they know it will have absolutely no effect at all on the consumption of tobacco and therefore it will not damage their revenue from taxation. This is hypocrisy of the worst kind.”
Even the cleverness of Ecclestone and Mosley, however, is unlikely to save the day for the tobacco companies. For the anti-smoking lobby is not confined to the EU. In Singapore and Thailand, for example, there are complex laws governing tobacco advertising. In Thailand the names and logos of cigarette manufacturers will be blurred during the Australian race.
Then there is the fact that an increasing number of major car manufacturers who will become involved in Formula One in the next few years, such as BMW, Honda and Toyota, do not want their identity swamped by a major tobacco company as title sponsor.
Even the FIA’s offer of a worldwide reduction of tobacco advertising may not be enough, and according to British Labour MP Peter Hain, a genuine Formula One fan, drivers should lead the move away from tobacco. “We want to see Formula One weaned off tobacco. You can’t do it overnight and the FIA has put forward a very good case for phasing it out. But I would like to see drivers taking tobacco off their overalls and helmets as a first step.
“The drivers are the ones who inspire young people and if they did not wear branding, it would stop that almost sexy image of tobacco and encourage other sponsors to come into the sport.”
Hain also wants to see Britain remain the natural home of Formula One engineering.
“It is our equivalent to Nasa,” he says. “It is not merely a spin-off to the motor industry as a whole, it has created a culture of engineering excellence in which Britain is a world-beater, and I think this should be shouted from the roof-tops.”
Another world-beater, one Bernie Ecclestone, is now facing his biggest challenge – to keep Formula One on track without the tobacco millions.
Additional reporting by Alan Henry