Motor Racing: Mosley finds a stock answer

David Tremayne suggests the sport is being forced to put its future on the market; Politics and a power broker cast their shadow as Formula One's leaders try to replace the tobacco money

WHEN Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley, the powerbrokers of motorsport, negotiated a stay of execution for tobacco sponsorship last October, it seemed that they had pulled off the sporting coup of the year by delaying the ban until 2009.

Within days, however, months of clever political chess were checkmated by the disclosure of Ecclestone's million-pound donation to New Labour, and amid scandalised headlines the phrase "giving a Bernie" became part of the vernacular. Then at the recent Australian Grand Prix Mosley appeared to indicate that the sport might after all be prepared to surrender its most lucrative means of income as early as 2002.

"When all the discussion was going on we repeatedly said that, as far as we could see or knew, there was no connection between the sponsorship and advertising of cigarettes in F1, and people taking up smoking," Mosley said. "We have now been told by several governments, particularly the British government, and also by the World Health Organisation, that they can make such evidence available. We have always said that if a link could be proved between smoking and the sponsorship in F1, then we ourselves would move to stop it."

This all sounds very laudable, but it is hard to see any sport voluntarily waving goodbye to an annual income estimated at more than pounds 300m, especially at a time when Mosley and Ecclestone have assiduously been courting China, Korea and Malaysia in an attempt to open up the sport in areas where the attitude to tobacco sponsorship is less evangelical. In Melbourne Ron Dennis, whose McLaren team are backed by West cigarettes after a 23- year spell with Marlboro, said: "Max was merely reiterating what has always been the FIA's stance. My understanding is that data from the bodies who suggest there is a link between smoking and tobacco sponsorship has not been forthcoming."

So is there another agenda behind the scenes that explains F1's apparent willingness to change its position? Last season Ecclestone's plans to float F1 on the London and New York stock markets were uncharacteristically unsuccessful as he encountered a number of stumbling blocks, not the least of which was the suggestion from the European Union that the manner in which F1 is run contravenes several European monopoly regulations. Mosley, in particular, has been the target for significant criticism from the EU official Karel van Miert.

Frank Williams recently pointed out the significance of that development: "It's obvious to me that van Miert could cause F1 a certain amount of trouble. He can't stop it taking place but he is a man with a lot of power. I think it's a worry, because he and Max seem to be on a collision course. They want to take each other on, they want to demonstrate which is stronger."

Williams identified another key point. "The argument has moved away from tobacco advertising. Sooner or later tobacco sponsorship will have gone; whether it's two years or eight, it's got to happen. We all recognise that. Van Miert wants to change the way F1 is run."

The worry for all the teams has been how to replace tobacco funding when the ban finally comes. Ecclestone's flotation appeared to address that problem, promising teams who had signed the sport's governing document, the Concorde Agreement, significant funding based on television revenue. Last year McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell refused to sign after objecting to several of the agreement's clauses; now all of the teams have signed a heavily revised version. F1 has thus sorted its internal housekeeping, which removes one of the flotation's stumbling blocks, and cynics believe that the FIA may now be prepared to sacrifice tobacco sponsorship in the short-term in return for the EU giving the flotation an easier ride.

The problem of future sponsorship funding remains. "I genuinely don't believe that F1 induces people to smoke, but it has a lot to do with brand loyalty," Dennis said. "Clearly any ban would effect a significant part of our budget, but in the end you cut your cloth accordingly."

F1 has become accustomed to the huge sums injected by tobacco companies, whose options elsewhere have been squeezed tight. However, this year Benetton have hedged their Mild Seven tobacco support with backing from FedEx. Jackie Stewart's "clean" team rely on blue-chip companies such as Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, MCI and Lear; Arrows have the utensil and office equipment companies Zepter and Danka, and the dairy giant Parmalat. There are, then, some alternatives. But it may be that F1 really needs that flotation to attract the money it must draw to itself in the years to come.