Formula One's Biggest Danger

Nick Gillespie | February 28, 2005

Over at the Nobody's Business blog, Rogier van Bakel writes,

What's the most dangerous thing about Formula One racing? The billboards, of course. That's right: European lawmakers have decided that the racing sport must kick its tobacco habit. No more billboards or decals with cigarette logos. The Guardian writes:

"The UK Tobacco Sponsorship and Advertising Act, coupled with a European commission directive, will remove the sport's biggest commercial supporter, and has left team principals searching for alternative brands."

Ah yes, as you're gazing out at a field of smoke-belching, bullet-speeding supercars, and you're breathing rocket-fuel fumes all afternoon, no health risk could be greater and more dastardly than the sight of a Marlboro sticker.

Whole thing here.

Special Bonus Link (gratuitous insult edition): One of the worst songs ever written, George Harrison's "Faster" is about Formula One racing legend Jackie Stewart and how "crazy people with love so frail" wanted to see him crash. (And I say this as a huge though not uncritical fan of the tune's composer.) Lyrics, though alas not the super-cheesy motor sound effects in the song itself, online here.

Double Plus Good Bonus Link (actually funny and on-topic edition): Nick Schulz, the commandante of the always interesting Tech Central Station, writes with firsthand knowledge of Formula One (F1) workarounds the tobacco ad bans.

I was at the Montreal Grand Prix last year where tobacco ads were banned on cars as well as everywhere else. What's the sponsor Benson Hedges to do? On the fin of the car they sponsor, they covered the letters 'ns' and 'H' and 'ss with black tape so that instead of reading "Benson Hedges" it read "Be on edge."

Of course, everyone in the crowd knew it was, in effect, a Benson Hedges ad. It was really a clever stroke for the forces of fun and humor. The tobacco jihadists are absolutely insufferable, but the threat to F1 is real. The Montreal GP was almost cancelled. Indeed, originally it was, but a late deal was struck to make it work (with a gov't subsidy, natch). Of course, F1 is thriving in Asia, where they love smoking. But the nanny-statists and killjoys will emerge there, too, just give it time.

Comments

Warren|2.28.05 @ 12:00PM|#

Nice going Nick,
Near duplicate temporally defective posts. What sort of Mickey Mouse(TM) operation you running here?

|2.28.05 @ 12:47PM|#

Well they've already taken the Winston out of the NASCAR Winston Cup series so I'm not surprised that Formula One would be next on the hit list of the Tobacco Talibans of the world

Mark Denovich|2.28.05 @ 1:37PM|#

A chart in the Economist from two weeks ago was particularly interesting... It broke down global stock growth by sector since 2000. Care to guess what sector had the best growth?

Tobacco at 228%!
Next closest was mining at 100% and energy at 50%.
Anything tech related was < 0.

Hoorray for regulations!

|2.28.05 @ 6:26PM|#

she needs bong.

|2.28.05 @ 11:57PM|#

they've already taken the Winston out of NASCAR

RJR pulled out of NASCAR for their own business reasons, not because of any direct government action. You might say that their poor business health was caused by government action, but that was peripheral to where and how they decide to spend their marketing dollars.

BTW, the French are the most absurdly vigilant when it comes to controlling tobacco advertising in F1. They even ban non-written logotypes that people might be familiar with. For example, Marlboro had to not only remove their name from the cars, but also were not allowed to use the white "chevron" thingy, and had to replace it with a white square. Lucky Strike had to get rid of their well known red circle.

|3.1.05 @ 1:45PM|#

"RJR pulled out of NASCAR for their own business reasons, not because of any direct government action. You might say that their poor business health was caused by government action, but that was peripheral to where and how they decide to spend their marketing dollars."

Peripherial?

If you think RJR would have had any "business" reason to pull oout of NASCAR absent government's actions to clamp down on tobacco advertising via sports promotion, then you've been smoking something a whole lot more potent than tobacco.