The McClaren team has presented its sponsor from 2019’s F1 season. The Formula 1 teams begin to present the novelties for this year 2019. For example, McLaren has made public its new sponsorship agreement and it is not just any company. The surprise has come to be a sponsor with a historical past strongly linked to Formula 1: BAT, or British American Tobacco.
It is not the first time that the tobacco industry enters Formula 1: The tobacco company of British nationality has been part of the Formula 1 World Championship for a long time using different brands. Moreover, even at the time, it had its own team, which was called British American Racing (better known by its acronym, BAR), which was part of the competition between 1999 and 2005.
Its most important moment was in 2004 when BAR achieved second place in the Formula 1 World Championship and got a total of fifteen podiums throughout its history in the championship. Therefore, McLaren has opted for a partner with prestige and track record, who knows perfectly how Formula 1 works and that will be very important when it comes to re-launch the British team.
The only thing that has not been revealed is how the visibility of BAT will be within the McLaren team, since in the Formula 1, a few years ago, the advertising of tobacco companies was completely prohibited.
Ferrari was also sponsored by Marlboro for years: It is expected, according to the media experts in this sport, that it is a sponsorship similar to the one Ferrari has with Marlboro.
The sponsorship which is carried out through its parent Philip Morris, which was invented, to avoid censorship of the brands of Tobacco; a bar code that appeared in Italian cars over several years.
A posteriori, they invented the brand, Mission Winnow, which is a company focused on science and research in order to reduce the toxic content of tobacco.
The logo of Mission Winnow is part of the official name of the Ferrari team, that is, Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow. Moreover, it also maintains the aesthetics and colors characteristic of the Marlboro brand.
According to a BAT statement, the visibility of the brand will be focused on research to make the future of tobacco and nicotine consumers better. It is suspected that this sponsorship will be done through the Vype or Vuse brands; the brands that belong to the company and are from electronic cigarettes.
2015, the total debacle with the arrival of Honda: Ron Dennis, in his effort to demonstrate that as a client team could not beat a manufacturer like Mercedes, seen the dominance of the Germans during 2014, decided to bet on Honda for 2015.
The reality was that unfortunately, we know, Honda did not know where it had gotten, changed the design of the engine twice, lost credibility and prestige to McLaren, as well as its sponsors.
2018 and Renault, regeneration or final debacle: Currently, McLaren is in full internal restructuring, with the intention of trying to achieve victories by 2020. However, the efforts and plans have already been drawn and point to the new regulatory change 2021 as a date marked in red.
Tim Goss has been the first of the many layoffs that are expected in the coming months in terms of personnel, changes are expected in facilities too and everything points to Fernando Alonso leaving the team this summer, which represents a market of pilots very interestingly.
