Timing of tobacco ban questioned

At present, the proposal for the European Union is that there should be a final ban on July 1, 2005, whereas the world date is not until the end of 2006.

FIA president Max Mosley says: "We believe it is absolutely essential that if a ban comes in, it is world-wide. Because if you start banning it in individual countries it is like trying to push the air out of a mattress - it simply goes somewhere else. There is a hearing in the European parliament on Monday (April 15) on this question."

In October 2000 the FIA World Council voted that the date chosen for motorsport to adopt the tobacco ban would be the end of the 2006 season, in line with the world date.

Mosley explained that countries adopting the ban earlier risk a gap where they perhaps would not have a Grand Prix.

"Without a world-wide advertising ban it is completely futile for an individual country to ban it because even if they were to succeed in banning tobacco advertising at their Grand Prix, they would still have television images all year coming from other races," he pointed out.

What was left unsaid was that with other countries lining up to host races, the chances of a country regaining a lost event would not appear to be good.