There is one very merciless rule in the world of motorsport: if you want to race, you need a sponsor. A very rich sponsor willing to pay a large part of the considerable expenses that come with racing.
That’s why most race cars today are covered in advertising. This is true everywhere, whether you look to the lowest levels of motorsport or to the royalty of Formula 1. It is the F1 single-seaters that are sometimes called “the fastest billboards on the planet”.
However, this was not always the case. Before the rich tobacco companies came into Formula 1 with brands like John Player Special, Marlboro, Camel and Rothmans, Formula 1 was not making nearly as much money. Races were sponsored by the team owners themselves or, in earlier times, by wealthy industrialists and noblemen who paid for the pioneers of motorsport.
Before the sponsors came
At first, the racing machines were not covered with sponsors’ advertising at all, but were driven in the so-called national colours. These have their origins in the national teams that participated in the famous Gordon Bennett Cup. In the first year of the 1900 competition, each team was assigned its national colours.
Blue belonged to France, yellow to Belgium, white to Germany and red to the USA. In 1902, Great Britain was added, but had to choose a different one from the already specified blue, white and red.
The winning Napier car was painted olive green and green was also the choice colour introduced in the manufacture of British locomotives. This is how the Shamrock green shade was created, which later evolved into the traditional British Racing Green.
Italy only got its famous red Rosso Corsa colour after the red Fiat won the Grand Prix in 1907. The USA then adopted a combination of white with blue stripes or a reversed scheme of blue with white stripes as its own. Japan had a white one with a red circle according to the Japanese flag with the rising sun and Germany had a silver one. Racing cars lasted on the international stage In this format until the 1960s
The first sponsors and the beginning of a new era
It is generally believed that the first ever racing single-seater on the European continent to race in the colours of a sponsor instead of national colours was the Maserati Eldorado. It wasn’t a Formula 1 race, and it wasn’t a sponsorship from a big tobacco company or alcohol manufacturer, but a somewhat sweeter addiction – ice cream.
Gino Zanetti, owner of the ice cream brand Eldorado, has signed a contract with Maserati to develop a race car to promote his brand during the Trofeo dei due Mondi (Race of the Two Worlds), a race held in Monza modeled on the Indianapolis 500.
At the time, it was a historic precedent that showed that the future of motorsport lay in sponsorship. From that point on, international racing opened up to financially strong companies, but it took a while before sponsorship took hold in the world of Formula 1.
Cigarettes everywhere you look
The sponsor colour scheme first appeared in the F1 series in 1968. John Love of the South African private Gunston team drove a Brabham in Gunston cigarette colours in the South African Grand Prix.
In the very next race, the 1968 Spanish Grand Prix, Lotus took up the idea, backed by none other than the brilliant Colin Chapman. Lotus became the first Formula 1 factory team to run in the colours of a sponsor. Graham Hill piloted the Lotus 49B, no longer in the traditional British Racing Green, but in a combination of red, gold and white of Imperial Tobacco’s Gold Leaf cigarettes.
May 12, 1968 is therefore seen as the beginning of a new era of sponsorship in motorsport, opening a new route to big money and rapid technological advances for teams. This has led not only to new technical solutions, but above all to an understanding of the importance and benefits of marketing.
A new era also began, bringing many iconic colour schemes that have gone down in history. The new trend was also accompanied by a secondary effect, where the individual colours of the single-seaters made it easier for fans to identify their favourite teams and drivers.
The tobacco companies, of course, were the main players, as their large profits allowed them to spend a lot of money on the “entertainment” called Formula 1. Imperial Tobacco was followed by companies such as Marlboro, Camel and Gitanes.
And it worked perfectly. After all, to this day, fans still associate a certain era of a team or driver with the colour scheme and the team’s main sponsor. Who doesn’t remember Ayron Senna in a John Player Special black and gold Lotus, a McLaren with Marlboro logos or a Williams with Rothmans lettering?
Michael Schumacher achieved his greatest successes in a Mild Seven-sponsored Benetton or a Marlboro-backed Ferrari, as did his main rival Mika Häkkinen in a silver and black McLaren with West logos. There was certainly a favourite for everyone, and quite possibly a favourite cigarette brand because of it.
Ban on tobacco advertising
As the era of the fearless, sexy, James Hunt-type tough guy fades, a new breed of rider has come of age. Cigarette in the corner was no longer cool, modern formula pilots became professional athletes who, thanks to their strict lifestyle and physical condition, can be boldly called the best athletes in the world.
And also the world “out there” outside the race tracks has changed. At the start of the millennium, there was increasing public talk about the harms of smoking, which eventually led to a worldwide trend to reduce the habit in public places. And of course, this has also affected the world of Formula 1.
In this respect, Formula 1 has been hit hardest by increasing pressure to restrict tobacco advertising, particularly in the European Union. In 1999, this first meant a restriction where teams had to adopt different car colours without tobacco advertising in European races. But some have been smart about it.
McLaren, for example, replaced West cigarettes with the first names of its drivers, so that the sides of the single-seaters were adorned with the inscriptions Mika and David, but still made to resemble the sponsor’s logo. Other teams have adopted similarly creative solutions, such as Jordan changing the sponsor Benson & Hedges to Buzzin’ Hornets, but still in the typical cigarette manufacturer font.
Then in 2003, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) issued a recommendation that all formula teams give up tobacco advertising. However, that was something the teams tried to avoid. In 2006, the FIA banned tobacco advertising in all the series it represents.
Then the cat and mouse game began. For example. Instead of the Marlboro sign, Ferrari used a barcode in the typical colours of the cigarette brand, so the ad had the same subconscious effect on the viewer. And the Ferrari team dropped the Marlboro brand from its official name in 2011.
But that doesn’t mean the tobacco companies have given up on the queen of motorsport. Formula 1 is still one of the most lucrative advertising spaces, but tobacco companies are trying to show it in a slightly different light, even pointing out the risks of smoking.
Marlboro has established the Mission Winnow brand, which still bears a striking resemblance to the brand’s typical logo, but refers to the company’s other products such as e-cigarettes, as does British American Tobacco, which has launched the A Better Tomorrow campaign promoting e-cigarettes and other nicotine products.
Tobacco companies are now on the decline, but they have been replaced by a company producing another “drug” and vice that is becoming increasingly talked about – sugary drinks. A separate and successful chapter in Formula 1 is being written by the energy drink brand Red Bull, which can even afford to run two teams.
Red Bull Racing is the number one team and the top of the starting field, a kind of “B” in which Red Bull breeds talent, was formerly Toro Rosso (translated as Red Bull), now AlfaTauri, backed by the eponymous clothing brand founded by Red Bull.
And what will Formula 1 cars look like in the future? We can expect that increasing pressures for a healthy lifestyle will one day relegate sugary energy drinks to the dustbin of history. But one thing is certain: no matter what Formula 1 looks like, there will always be big money and rich sponsors behind the teams. And fans will still remember their favourite heroes mainly by the colours of their sponsors.
