The Weekly Grapevine

Ferrari and Tobacco

This year Ferrari have produced a fair number of shockers, but Saturday evening's announcement that the financially-strapped planning to persuade Valentino Rossi to switch from two wheels to four, had extended their partnership deal with Philip Morris International certainly took the prize for raising the greatest number of eyebrows in the shortest amount of time.

Not only did company president Luca di Montezemolo rather nonchalantly announce probably the largest sponsorship deal in the team's history - after all, why, given that tobacco companies have fewer marketing options than ever, would the annual value of Ferrari's red areas be considered less worthy than before? - whilst addressing the international media during an annual dinner, but did so in the immediate wake of a guilty verdict after legal proceedings were brought initiated by Italy's anti-smoking lobby.

So seriously did Ferrari take the judgement handed down by a Monza judge - although an appeal is expected - that all reference to their tobacco sponsor was removed post-haste, whilst media releases and bulletins showed just a red strip where just a day before the cigarette brand had been proudly inserted.

Of course, all manner of rumours surrounded the deal. Vodafone intended leaving the team at end-2006, said one source, whilst another suggested Rossi's fiscal expectations and the cost of his schooling as test driver had forced Ferrari to adopt the moral low ground. All well and good, but possibly the pending departure of the telecoms giant is not unrelated to the utter refusal by Ferrari to wean itself off the obnoxious brown weed after two decades of almost total addiction.

After all, as mobile telephony reaches ever-younger age groups and a good proportion of Vodafone's world-wide marketing campaigns includes reference to the sponsorship programme, any wonder that a rethink as regards the Ferrari link is said to be on the cards?

Equally, the Rossi programme remains enigmatic. Here is a rider, who, not too long ago, is said to have shunned Formula One over the sport's then-widespread tobacco links, fuelling suggestions that he would not make the switch, certainly not to Ferrari. MotoGP's resident genius now rides for the French tobacco-sponsored Yamaha, proving he does, after all, accept brown dollars, but the fact remains that he has yet to prove himself in four-wheeled combat. And just why Ferrari is preparing to spend mega-millions on his test programmes without at least demanding that he simultaneously compete in, say, GP2, remains inexplicable.

Sir Jackie Stewart, at Monza, put it best. "(Valentino) Rossi is an artist at the top of his sport, but that does not necessarily equip him for Grand Prix motor racing. Strategies and techniques are all different, the wheel-to-wheel racing is completely different, and testing is not a true pointer of how somebody will race. His main problem is that if he makes the switch and does not succeed, he'll find it difficult to go back to motorcycle racing with his image untarnished. You are always remembered for what you last did, not what you really did."

Here, after all, is one of his generation's true showmen who surely will not accept anonymously pounding about test tracks forever, even if for Ferrari. Should it become clear (to him) that a career at Fiorano and Mugello, rather than before adoring crowds at Francorchamps and Monza is his destiny, as was discovered by that other great Italian two-wheel Champion Giacomo Agostini, he could well prefer to depart the four-wheeled scene altogether.

However, regardless of such considerations, it remains indisputable that, as of 31 July this year, all commercial promotion of tobacco within the European Union is outlawed, yet here was Ferrari, casually and without ado, announcing a $500m tobacco sponsorship extension within days and a few kilometres of a court room which had found the company criminally in breach of such legal provisions.

Not surprisingly, Formula One in general took a dim view. One senior team source, who requested anonymity as his company no longer peddled space to tobacco companies, and did not thus wish to be accused of 'sour grapes' - if such term could be used in connection with nicotine - was adamant that present sponsors would feel hood-winked.

"We agreed terms with a major sponsor only after assuring them that tobacco sponsorship was in decline, and would be out of Formula One by end-2006. That, after all, is what the FIA told us.

"I can assure you that a few of our sponsors will be seriously unhappy about the continuation of tobacco in Formula One."

He suggested that consumer brands would stay, whilst others, such as pharmaceutical companies, would find it difficult to justify, internally and externally, any associations with a physical sport still permitting tobacco livery. "A matter of one team jeopardising commercial opportunities for all others," he said. "We made our decision, and won't be going back (to tobacco). If that is what Ferrari needs to survive, then it is up to them to live with it."

The governing body has, of course, backtracked, but 'blamed' the EU and their known legal advisers for the situation. "It was our intention to impose a voluntary ban on tobacco sponsorship from end-2006," admitted an FIA spokesperson, "but two things happened: first the EU Commission, under David Byrne, changed their part of the bargain by bringing it into effect from July this year, then our legal advisers advised us that we could not interfere with commercial agreements struck by competitors."

Still, questions remain. Should a sporting body in this day and age, one charged by the public and its own statutes with reducing damage to life and limb, permit a tobacco-liveried driver, in full view of a television audience counted in hundreds of millions, to scale a podium flying the flag of the FIA? Surely ignoring very real health concerns brought about by smoking is akin to South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki vowing that no proof exists that HIV leads to AIDS?

Could not a very strong case be made that Ferrari's re-acceptance of smokey sponsorship for their Formula One team has further brought the sport into disrepute, and, as such, should not such charges be considered against the team? Finally, given that the FIA Formula One World Championship is, as the body regularly points out, the sole preserve of the FIA, should not a clause be inserted in the 2008 (and beyond) regulations that all forms of tobacco sponsorship are prohibited? How/why should a judge decide against the FIA's right to that clause, and where would any such case be brought?

If jurisdiction was a problem when BAR-Honda intended to appeal their ban over a 'dodgy' fuel tank earlier this year, why should jurisdiction be the matter of a moment in a commercial case? The FIA seems confident that a single tyre manufacturer ruling can be successfully introduced as part of the to-be-introduced regulations; why not a ban on tobacco?

Grand Prix Master

That Bernie Ecclestone owns the world-wide rights to the Formula One World Championship goes undisputed; that he owns the universal rights to 'Grand Prix' is certainly under dispute, and likely to stay that way for an appreciable period to come.

The latest series to feel the force of his lawyers is Scott Poulter's Grand Prix Masters series, or GP Masters as it may well become known. Or GPM for short.

Despite being a UK-based operation, the series was officially announced in South Africa over Easter this year, with the inaugural race of the Championship scheduled to take place at Kyalami on 13 November as part of a GPM/F1 x 2 (for Minardi two-seaters) jamboree organised in aid of Nelson Mandela's Childrens' Fund charity.

All seemed hunky-dory, including negotiations with another series going under the same name - one for thoroughbred 3,0 litre Grand Prix cars - and Poulter went ahead with the organisation. Recently things have hotted up, as is to be expected with the maiden race but two months hence. Further details were announced, and the first batch of driver names announced.

Last Wednesday came the big one: Nigel Mansell. 1980 World Champion Alan Jones and double Champion and Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi had been alluded to at the launch, as had Rene Arnoux - who drove a prototype at Easter - whilst four-time champ Alain Prost had a while back indicated he would take up the challenge. Simultaneously Riccardo Patrese agreed to compete, but Mansell got Fleet Street going, and the series received more ink in a week than it had through all other announcements combined.

Inevitably, legal proceedings have followed. Late last week it had been announced that Formula One Holdings, the main subsidiary of the SLEC trust owned 75/25 by a trio of banks and Ecclestone's family, raised objections to GPM's use of 'Grand Prix'. That was not the only spoke in Poulter's wheels: Ecclestone hinted he may introduce a 'Grand Prix masters series' of his own: one boasting similarly eligible drivers, but driving Porsche Boxsters in place of the present Super Cup races slotted into Grand Prix Sundays.

"Many eligible 'name' drivers are here already, whether for commentary duties or whatever," said a FIA spokesman at Monza, "and the times slot already exists, so it is a convenient way of adding value to the weekend's proceedings."

A Porsche source was equally bullish. "It would be wonderful to see a race like that for the masters of days gone by, and it would be great for our brand," he said.

Of course it would be great to see the likes of Niki Lauda, Jacques Lafitte, Marc Surer, Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell in equal Porsches on Sundays, as it would be equally great to see Prost, Fittipaldi, Jones, Mansell, Patrese, Arnoux and Co. in purpose-built single seaters on circuits once, but no more, on Ecclestone's calendars - think Estoril, think Zolder, think Zandvoort and, of course, Kyalami.

The absolute irony, and hopefully Ecclestone sees it in such light, is that 'his' series would be for effectively road-going cars, modified by way of roll cages and mandatory racing equipment, whilst Poulter's Championship utilises single-seaters with 650 bhp, and wings and slicks. Where does the greater 'mastery' lie? Answers on the back of a Porsche glove box lid, please.

The absolute tragedy in all this litigation - if it comes to that - is that both series could easily survive side-by-side: the Porsche Masters Cup running between 10:00 and 11:00 on Grand Prix Sundays, with GPM proper being hosted six/seven times per year internationally. Different strokes for different folks...

A quick peruse of European Union trade marks, whether applied for, granted, or objected to, shows that 'Grand Prix' and its derivatives are listed no less than 40 times - with but 50% of these referring specifically to open-wheeler racing of the type Ecclestone promotes, and the balance covering everything from communications services, ice skating to food awards. It is well-known that the term relates to 'grand prize' and that it has become a generic term in sporting circles.

Poulter's concept, though, is essentially an open-wheeler Championship, although it is hardly likely to keep Ecclestone awake at night - unless, that is, he tunes in to watch his former stars racing at circuits he has long forsaken.

If GPM really is perceived by Ecclestone to be a threat to his trade marks, a question: why no litigation against A1 Grand Prix, whose trademarks are seemingly going ahead and which had originally been conceived by Sheik Maktoum as a premier winter series? Does F1's tsar not see A1 GP as a threat, or is there another agenda?