3 Things to Watch For in F1’s 2025 Season

The first race of the Formula 1 2025 season kicked off on March 16 in Melbourne, Australia. Amid the crowds, the cars and the rain at the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit, the tobacco industry was lurking in the background.

F1 is the only global sports series, besides its motorcycle racing counterpart, MotoGP, that still allows tobacco sponsorships. While tobacco company branding may be less pervasive than in the sport’s earlier days, when large cigarette logos were splashed across cars and driver suits, it is still very much present in the sport, and is reaching a globally expanding audience.

Despite the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), F1’s governing body, announcing that tobacco sponsorship should stop after the 2006 season, the McLaren and Ferrari teams are still taking money from cigarette companies.

Since STOP launched its first Driving Addiction report in 2020 examining tobacco money in F1, British American Tobacco (BAT) has put branding for its e-cigarette and nicotine pouch products on McLaren cars and Philip Morris International (PMI) temporarily used the Ferrari team to promote its “Mission Winnow” campaign—a now-defunct initiative to showcase PMI’s “transition from cigarettes to electronic.”

BAT and PMI branding in F1 has varied from race to race and season to season, but they continue to spend millions in sponsorship dollars each year—a combined total estimated at US $40 million in 2024 alone. It’s easy to see why they might find these partnerships so valuable. As F1 continues to expand its global audience and reach younger viewers, BAT and PMI is along for the ride.

The race in Melbourne was just the first of 24 Grand Prix weekends scheduled across 21 countries for the 2025 F1 season. As the season progresses, here are three things we’ll be watching for:

1. Will F1 use new schemes to try to capture younger fans, expanding Big Tobacco’s reach?

In 2023, F1 piloted “F1 Kids,” live feeds of F1 races geared specifically toward children. F1 Kids expanded in 2024, covering seven races. The broadcasts included colorful graphics, cartoon avatars of F1 drivers and race commentary by kids. Some of them also included tobacco company branding. At least three F1 Kids races—the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the Monaco Grand Prix and the British Grand Prix—featured BAT branding on the McLaren cars. F1 Kids has been broadcast in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. While F1 Kids has not announced which races it will cover in 2025, if any, tobacco company branding may reach even more children if coverage expands like it did in 2024.

This season also kicks off a partnership between F1 and The LEGO Group, including DUPLO sets geared towards preschool-aged children. While the LEGO sets will not feature any tobacco company branding, they may help draw the youngest audience yet to F1. Children who seek out F1 content after becoming familiar with the sport via LEGO may be exposed to BAT branding on McLaren cars as well as cigarette advertising in historic F1 race coverage.

2. Will BAT advertise products in countries where tobacco advertising, or the product itself, has been banned—and will countries hold them accountable?

Some countries hosting F1 Grands Prix have implemented various bans on e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches. But that doesn’t always stop tobacco companies from advertising their products at F1 races. In Bahrain, where e-cigarettes have been banned since 2013, the McLaren car has carried branding for BAT’s e-cigarette product every year since 2019. (E-cigarettes have been sold under the name “electronic hookah” since 2016, possibly creating an advertising loophole that BAT exploits.)

In the Netherlands in 2023, McLaren cars featured branding for BAT’s Velo nicotine pouch, just months after Dutch lawmakers announced plans to ban the product. Dutch health organizations filed complaints about the advertising of a banned product, and the logos were absent in the 2024 race. (There was, however, a mysterious PMI “Tobacco Innovations” kiosk promoting PMI’s products at the Dutch Grand Prix in 2024.)

Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) bans, when enforced, can protect F1 audiences from tobacco messaging. This was the case at the 2025 season’s first race in Australia, where strong TAPS laws prevented logos for BAT products appearing on McLaren cars. Viewers were also protected in the 2023 season, where TAPS restrictions prevented BAT from advertising its products at races in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, Japan, Mexico and Singapore.

TAPS bans can protect F1 fans even in countries that don’t host F1 races. South African lawmakers are reportedly considering a bill to further restrict TAPS, including on TV broadcasts such as F1 races.

3. Will F1 announce new races in new places?

In the late 1990s, most F1 races took place in mainland Europe. After more than 25 years of expanding its geographic reach, including in places of strategic interest to the tobacco industry, the 2025 Grands Prix will take place across five continents.

The 2025 race locations are set, but F1 is always eyeing future destinations and announcements for future races could come at any time. Countries such as Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Thailand, Korea, and Indonesia, have expressed interest in hosting. F1’s expansion into Africa and further expansion into Asia would benefit the tobacco industry, as it seeks to grow its market and hook more users in these regions.

The most important question: When will the FIA and Liberty Media finally do the right thing and ban all tobacco sponsorship in F1?

The answer should be: Now.