APRIL 5, 2003

Confusion over tobacco in Brazil

Anti-tobacco legislation has been going through Brazil's Congress for the last three years but the laws are now finally official although there was considerable confusion at Interlagos over the details of what branding teams are allowed to run. The Brazilian law allows for "world class" events to maintain tobacco sponsorship, at least in the short team. The problem has been that no-one was quite sure what constituted a world class event. As a result Ferrari spent much of Friday running without tobacco branding but then decided to put the branding back on the cars for qualifying. Other teams initially followed Ferrari and removed tobacco branding but later put the logos back on the cars.

Print News Story