Williams Warns Rivals Against Tobacco Sponsorship

Sir Frank Williams said on Friday that the five Formula One teams who currently rely on tobacco sponsorship have missed the boat on searching for other funding and will be left behind when their backers are banned in 2006.

The Belgian Grand Prix, which takes place on Sunday, was thrown off the calendar last season because of a ban on tobacco advertising but has returned this year with cars in full tobacco branding.

Williams are one of five outfits who do not rely on tobacco backing and have deliberately tried to find non-tobacco sponsors in preparation for a worldwide ban on tobacco advertising.

"The other teams now are facing an abrupt, shuddering shock and now they have to go out and find real money," Williams said. "We obviously hope they are unsuccessful in finding real money. It will certainly weaken their financial structure and we hope they will have less money to spend on a year-by-year basis. Ferrari will never find anything like as much as Marlboro pay."

Ferrari rely on Marlboro, McLaren are backed by West, Mild Seven sponsor Renault, BAR are part-owned by British American Tobacco, whose brands include Lucky Strike and 555, and Jordan have long run with Benson and Hedges branding.

But Williams, who were backed by a cigarette brand in the 1990s, signed a landmark sponsorship deal last year with NiQuitin CQ, a company that provides a range of products aimed at helping people stop smoking.

That allowed Williams to run the slogan "Tobacco Free" in Friday practice at Spa and Williams said: "It isn't really a personal crusade but as a company and as a team we are very happy to be representing this particular message."

Williams claimed the teams still involved with tobacco advertising could stand to lose up to 30 percent of their annual budget when the ban comes into force and tobacco sponsorship ends.

"We saw the link between tobacco and Formula One was going to be finite," said Williams, whose team decided to go 'anti-tobacco' in 2000. "I can't emphasise strongly enough, it was time to get away.

"The writing is on the wall. The dates have been set. It (money from tobacco advertising) has been good to Formula One but the world is changing and we hope we are slightly ahead of it."

Some of the top teams have already picked up major sponsorship deals with non-tobacco companies such as Ferrari's deal with telecoms giants Vodafone.