Richards Not Ruling Out Canada Reprieve

The Canadian Grand Prix could go ahead next year if Bernie Ecclestone agrees to compensate teams for not running tobacco advertising on their cars, BAR-Honda team principal David Richards has said.

The Montreal race will not appear on the calendar after Ecclestone confirmed the event will be dropped because the Canadian government have not made Formula One exempt to a ban on tobacco advertising.

Key Canadian officials are at the Hungarian Grand Prix for talks with Ecclestone, but Richards said his team could run without their British American Tobacco logos if they were compensated.

"Clearly it is a very popular race for us all to attend but there are commercial considerations as well and we have an agreement about the phasing out of cigarette advertising across all of motorsport over the next three years," Richards said.

"Our sponsors have actually said they would consider running without livery if it made a difference to going back to the event. However, that has a commercial consideration for it as well and we would be looking to Bernie, if that was an extra event in the Championship, to look at the proper compensation for going there."

Toyota team boss Ove Andersson, whose team do not carry tobacco advertising, said he was not happy with the Canadian event being dropped from the calendar because North America is a key market for the Japanese car giant.

"I think that, for me, it is one of the best Grands Prix and I think that Canada is a very important market for Toyota so we are definitely not so happy that it is not on the calendar for next year," Andersson said.

Eddie Jordan, whose team scored their first points in Formula One in Canada, added that he found the decision to not be "logical".

"It was the first place we ever scored a point, 1991 with (Andrea) de Cesaris and (Bertrand) Gachot fourth and fifth," Jordan said. "It is a great city, an emerging great technical centre and if we are ever going to crack the North American continent then cancelling or not going to a place like Montreal doesn't seem at all logical to me."