If you pay attention during next weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, you’ll see the BMW Williams Formula One car rocking a
“Tobacco Free” logo, indicating its recent liberation from tobacco sponsorship. The Belgian race itself was hit with a
proposed cancellation earlier this year after the Belgian Health Ministry prohibited any tobacco-F1 relationship. The
ban was later amended (most likely because a lot of people got pissed off since they knew the sheer dollar amounts
generated by the tobacco ads) to one which allows tobacco sponsorship only in the race area and only during the race.
The new “Tobacco Free” logo emblazoned on the BMW Williams car is paid for by GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturer of NiQuitin
CQ, a product designed to help smokers quit the very thing they enjoy most in the world. A Europe-wide ban on tobacco
sponsorship will start next July, and it is rumored that Royal Bank of Scotland may back the McLaren or BAR Honda squad
if/when the tobacco brand West pulls out.
Correction: the Belgian GP was actually last weekend. Sorry!