- [Nolan] Formula 1 or F1 as it's known to fans
was in the headlines recently
for reasons that had nothing to do with cars
or Lewis Hamilton's rakish good looks.
In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Haas F1 cut ties with Russian driver, Nikita Mazepin
and title sponsor Uralkali
a Russian oil company
run by Nikita's father, Dmitry Mazepin.
Turns out Dmitry Mazepin was literally
in a meeting with Vladimir Putin
on the first day of the Russian invasion.
And Haas only really signed Nikita
in the first place to get Dmitry's money.
The car also had a Russian flag livery,
which is not a good look at the moment,
internationally speaking.
So they definitely made the right decision here.
But it's still just a little surprising
that anyone drew a line anywhere at all
considering the state of some other current F1 sponsors
and business partners.
Today on Wheelhouse,
I'm gonna rain on everyone's parade lap
and tell you why pretty much every F1 sponsor
is shady.
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(Nolan laughs)
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The fact that F1 has sponsors at all,
has long been both a big booster
of the sports growth
and somewhat of a bummer.
We're all so used to seeing race cars plastered
with ads that we don't really even question it
but until the 1960s grand pre cars generally ran
without any badging at all.
Using only national colors.
Back then the closest thing F1 teams had
to sponsors were the tire
and oil companies that gave them free supplies
in exchange for a small logos on drivers' overalls.
Even the mark of each car was limited
to a discreet badge on the nose
until the mid 60's.
When Team Lotus began to print its name
on the side of its cars.
Honda and other competitors quickly followed suit.
However, commercial sponsorship remained outlawed in F1
until 1968.
What changed?
Well before that season, BP
and Shell withdrew from supplying F1 with oil
and Firestone simultaneously decided to start charging
for tires.
Faced with a heap of new expenses,
the FIA decided to finally allow teams sponsors.
It was either that
or sign Jackie Stewart up to drive for Uber.
Team Lotus quickly took advantage of the new rules.
Lotus founder, Colin Chapman,
signed an 85,000 British pound a year deal
with Imperial Tobacco to sponsors Lotus 49.
In the season's third race,
the 1968 Monaco Grand Prix,
Lotus shocked fans
by ditching their traditional British racing green livery
for a red paint job
based on Imperial's Gold Leaf cigarette cartons.
F1 cars have been covered with ads,
Post Malone tattoo style ever since.
Today, more than 300 brands are F1 sponsors.
Accounting for over a billion dollars.
Pouring into F1's coffers every year.
Sponsorships generally account for at least a quarter
of each team's income.
With some teams relying on sponsors
for up to 80% of their funding.
That's big money.
Which means big pressure on team owners to sign up more
and more backers.
So historically they've been willing to accept sponsorships
from pretty much anyone who can clear a check.
That illustrious history
includes extremely confusing sponsors.
Like condom manufacturer Durex,
x-rated magazine Penthouse
and James Humphrey's favorite band in the world, Abba.
Mamma mia, here we go again.
To be fair, this is not an F1 specific issue.
Rivals like IndyCar
and NASCAR have both run cars sponsored by Dianetics
and bankrolled by the church of Scientology.
Speaking of things that are not real and sponsored F1 cars,
Rich Energy may be the most famous recent example
of a scammy F1 sponsor.
The little known company agreed to a title sponsorship deal
with Haas,
before the 2019 season.
Despite the fact that the company's energy drink
was basically not sold in stores.
The deal fell apart midway through the season
when Rich Energy's official Twitter account tweeted
they were terminating the contract
because of poor performance.
What was really happening was a struggle within Rich Energy.
Which was trying to oust CEO William Storey.
Unfortunately for the company,
Storey had control of their Twitter account
and was also the face of the deal with Haas.
Storey went on to compare Haas's car to a milk truck
and tweeted a Photoshop of himself
crashing the team's vehicles.
Donut's very own Joe Weber,
actually bought me a case of Rich Energy
off the internet in 2020.
And I have to say it's actually pretty good.
It helped me write a lot of episodes of Past Gas.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention oil companies here.
Who have been prominently involved in the sport
since those free gas days.
But I'm basically gonna give F1 a pass for oil sponsorships
and not really talk about them here
because number one,
every single one does the same shady stuff
so it's not very fun to examine.
And two,
oil is integral to the actual sport itself.
It's like getting mad if the NFL was sponsored
by an MRI machine company.
You just can't.
On the other hand,
I will definitely give it up for the all time GOAT
of awful F1 sponsors, tobacco companies.
Team Lotus's early partnership
with Imperial Tobacco,
paved the way for decades of close collaborations
between cigarette manufacturers
and racing teams.
In 1972, Lotus launched a black
and gold livery inspired by John Player Special,
another Imperial brand.
To many fans,
this car proved,
that a branded livery could actually look good
and I gotta say, they weren't wrong.
The John Player Special freaking rules.
Marlboro, joined the influx of tobacco brands in F1 in 1973
by signing a deal with McLaren.
It then became Ferrari's main partner in 1996,
defining an era of F1 cars,
thanks to the success of Michael Schumacher.
But despite the Marlboro car's iconic status,
it was an endangered species.
In the late 90s,
individual countries began adopting tobacco ad restrictions
in the media.
At the same time,
the expansion of cable and satellite TV, made F1
and other Motorsports increasingly reliant on media money.
But tobacco companies didn't go down without a fight.
In response to the new rules,
companies like British American Tobacco
began designing global dark market logos.
These logos used the color
and design of key cigarette brands,
but not their names.
So they could still be placed on cars.
Very clever.
By 2005,
a treaty spearheaded by the World Health Organization
led to the ban of tobacco advertising in the print media,
on radio
and all over the internet.
Basically all over the world.
In 2006, the FIA finally implemented the recommendation
against tobacco advertising.
Although, it wasn't an outright ban.
This little loophole,
gave tobacco companies,
the ability to skirt the new rules with creative twists
on their old branding.
Which led to super weird liveries
like the Marlboro barcode car
and the admittedly awesome Bitten
and Hisses car that substituted a fricking snake
for Benson & Hedges tobacco branding.
I gotta say big upgrade.
Nevertheless, without the ability to actually advertise
their cancer sticks, cigarette companies
eventually stopped sponsoring F1 teams all together.
Or did they?
Question mark, question mark.
Despite literal international laws
against tobacco advertising
ciggy companies are still a big source of sponsorship money.
These days,
tobacco companies simply disguise their sponsorship dollars.
British American Tobacco is now a principal sponsor
of McLaren.
Only the car says, "A better tomorrow"
instead of a cigarette name.
That phrase is apparently British American Tobacco's
thought leading program that hopes to provide
"A portfolio potentially reduced risk products
which can deliver a better tomorrow for our consumers."
Similarly, Marlboro actually still sponsors Ferrari
but their contributions are branded as Mission Winnow
which just like A Better Tomorrow is a stupid thing
you've never heard of.
This one is funded by Philip Morris,
Marlboro's parent company
and seeks to quote,
"Create engagement around the role of science technology
and innovation as a powerful force for good."
What?
Mission Winnows website also says it's dedicated
to finding non-smoking tobacco alternatives
and that it's experimenting on donated human tissue
to see those possible alternative before human trials.
So basically it's a bunch of guys sitting around figuring
out how to make juul pods more addictive.
Awesome.
And truth be told.
I'm not sure what Philip Morris gets out of advertising
a fake science initiative
that no one will ever pay attention to.
But hey, what do I know?
I'm literally just some guy.
F1's continued relationship
with Big Tobacco is only one of many
controversial industries
that the sport currently partners with.
So,
let's play a quick game of Bingo, shall we?
Here's how it works.
I'll look at the current grid
and tell you which racing teams are associated
with which shady industry.
In the end, you pick the team to root for
that repels you the least.
Sounds fun, right?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
But here we go anyway.
First, everyone gets a free space for environmental issues.
That's because before the 2020 season,
F1 announced a long term sponsorship deal with Saudi Aramco.
The world's largest corporate greenhouse gas emitter.
This single company is estimated to be responsible
for over 4% of the entire world's
greenhouse gas emissions since 1965.
It's the closest real world equivalent
to partnering with Thanos.
Great work F1.
The new hotness in racing right now,
is crypto sponsorships.
Not necessarily evil
but definitely an unregulated playground
for scammers, spammers
and various other ne'er-do-wells.
We talked a lot about this in our metaverse video.
So go check that one out
'cause I'm actually really proud of it.
So let's see.
Aston Martin is sponsored by crypto.com.
Red bull is sponsored by Tezos.
McLaren is sponsored by bitsy.com.
AlphaTauri is sponsored by Phantom
and Alpha Romeo partnered with socios.com.
All right, let's check the Bingo card here
and wow.
This might be a quick Bingo.
F1 accepted its first ever gambling sponsorship in 2020
when the 188 BET sports book was installed
as the official betting partner of F1 Asia.
Ahead of the 2022 season,
Redbull agreed to a branding deal with PokerStars.
So, let's add a couple more stamps to the card here.
Okay. Let's see.
We've got a scams column up there.
AlphaTauri is sponsored by myWorld,
which is a multi-level marketing scheme
that's banned in Norway.
It used to be called Lyoness
and before that it was called iTime
but they kept changing their name to avoid lawsuits.
Similarly, Aston Martin took a sponsorship from FuturoCoin
which was a rebranding of a Ponzi scheme called FutureNet.
Next up is health.
First, we gotta stamp Ferrari
and McLaren for the tobacco thought labs.
Great, thanks.
Energy drinks are also known to cause heart
and brain issues.
So team Redbull gets a stamp.
Monster Energy sponsors Mercedes.
Haas gets a retroactive Nolan
for rich energy
and Williams also gets one
for a Hungarian sponsor named Hell Energy.
Can we talk about this website for a sec?
What's in that flask.
Why does she have a barcode scanner?
Where do these people work?
I wanna know 'cause I wanna apply.
This looks awesome.
(Nolan sighs)
Anyway, now we've got the worst category on the board.
Human rights violations.
Every one of these teams has raced in China,
Bahrain, Azerbaijan
and most recently Saudi Arabia.
All those countries are run by governments
known to restrict civil liberties
and abuse human rights.
That hasn't stopped anyone in F1
from taking their money
and legitimizing their leadership.
Most problematically, the largest shareholder
of the McLaren group is the
Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company.
In other words,
McLaren is actually owned by the royal family.
The literal government of Bahrain.
Staging these races
and accepting these team owners,
is in direct conflict with the
We Race As One messaging F1 has been using
the past couple of years.
So let's, let's check the final Bingo score here.
And it looks like we all lose.
Told you this game's not fun.
Okay.
So, lots of companies are shady.
That's, not a very good lesson.
Where do we draw the line?
It's easy to point out human rights violations
in Saudi Arabia or Azerbaijan.
It's not like America's perfect.
More to the point,
are American oil tycoons really much different
from Russian ones?
Any company that's wealthy enough to sponsor an F1 team
is likely to have some skeletons in their closet.
That's just the nature of the system that we live in.
There isn't an easy answer to this problem
and Formula 1 isn't the only sport with this issue.
So we're left in a situation,
where the action on track isn't inherently harmful,
but we also can't just close our eyes
to the money making it happen.
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(upbeat music)
- All right, so yeah.
Thank you very much for watching Wheelhouse.
Bit of a mixed bag on this one this week.
Um,
I don't know.
Tweet at some, some racing teams.
How about that?
I think if you've got a problem
with how things are done,
hit 'em up on social media.
Get in touch with these teams.
Let 'em know that you want to see something different.
Be kind, I'll see you next time.