F1 learning to live without tobacco

Formula 1 is successfully weaning itself off tobacco sponsorship in time to meet the 2006 ban on cigarette branding, according to a sports conference being held in London this week

Tim Moufarrige, president of sales at international sports promotion company Octagon, tackled the issue in a speech at the SportBusiness 2002 conference.

"Tobacco advertising is banned in a lot of countries already and F1, which so heavily depends on the financial backing of cigarette firms, is already preparing itself for the worldwide ban," he said. "We are already seeing a lot of technical companies associated with F1 which has been a hugely successful programme."

But not every company that enters into sponsorship in F1 believes it is getting as much as it should from the sport. Shell Europe's sponsorship manager, Pippa Collett, said: "We are still failing in terms of sending out the right message about our brand via this sponsorship. We are not just a mobile billboard. It is very hard to track how well this sponsorship is working."

The oil giant back F1's most famous and successful team, Ferrari.