Mosley: European Races Could Fall to Three

FIA president Max Mosley has said that Europe could have as few as three Grands Prix in the future if the EU's extensive ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in not postponed.

Speaking to Britain's Financial Times newspaper, Mosley said he fears Formula One would have to reduce the number of European races to a minimum for teams to accept running with tobacco branding.

"The inevitable result is that the number of races in the EU will be reduced to the point where tobacco companies will accept it," Mosley said. "(It would probably mean) three or four races in the EU and the other races would be outside of Europe."

Europe currently hosts 10 Grands Prix. Mosley added that the repercussions could be felt beyond 2006.

"The difficulty would be that having made a contract with somebody outside Europe it won't just be for one year," he said. "It is inevitably for five years. And if they don't have a tobacco ban, we may well see the tobacco sponsorship going on after the original worldwide date of October 1 2006.

"So you can see immediately that the decision of the EU Commission to change the date...is completely mad, because they are quite likely to see tobacco (advertising) going on, coming in on the television from outside Europe for many years to come."

Formula One's tobacco advertising problems, which resulted in the Belgian Grand Prix being axed from this year's calendar, arose after the EU brought forward the effective date of the ban from October 2006 to July 2005.

Teams have negotiated contracts with tobacco sponsors until 2006 and Mosley admitted: "We will have a period where the teams will have contracts with sponsors who are tobacco companies but they will not be able to race with them in Europe."