F1 could face alcohol sponsorship ban

Alcohol companies could be prevented from signing sponsorship deals with Formula One race teams, if a campaign by a road safety lobby is successful.

Speculation over a ban on alcohol advertising in the sport has been rumbling for several years, however according to The Telegraph, a road-safety lobby, encompassing several European charities, is planning to launch a marked campaign against Formula One this year over its links with the alcohol industry.

The campaign would mirror that of anti-smoking groups which successfully forced tobacco sponsorship out of the motorsport IN 2011.

Such charities have already demonstrated their clout by apparently thwarting an ambition of Jean Todt, president of the FIA, the governing body for world motor sport, to take on a role at the UN as a representative for road safety.

Campaigners, including the British charity RoadPeace,  argued this was “absolutely wrong” in writing letters to Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary general who is since understood to have reassured groups that such a role would not be granted to Todt.

Several alcohol companies currently have multi-million pound sponsorship deals with various F1 teams including Force India, McLaren and Williams, which have deals with Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Martini respectively, while G.H. Mumm has been the official Champagne sponsor of the sport since 2000.

In France, alcohol sponsorship within the sport is already banned owing to a two-decade-old law banning the advertising of alcohol on television – a law which road safety campaigners are keen to see extended across Europe and which the EU could enforce upon the sport.

Formula One is estimated to have lost £149 million in sponsorship when the EU moved to ban tobacco sponsorship from the sport, which the industry voluntarily agreed to in 2007, before being banned completely by the EU in 2011.

The UK’s Labour party is rumoured to be making similar proposals in its manifesto for next year’s general election.