BAT BACK ON TRACK

IN FORMULA ONE

BRITISH American Tobacco, which had its own Formula One team before selling to Honda in 2006, is returning to the sport under a multi-year partnership with McLaren. Both sides said in a statement announcing the deal yesterday that the partnership will focus solely on BAT’s “potentially reduced risk products” with an emphasis on technology and innovation.

Tobacco advertising was widespread in Formula One until a ban in 2006 led most teams to kick the habit and seek sponsors elsewhere.

Ferrari’s partnership with Philip Morris International, whose Mission Winnow initiative focuses on smoke-free ‘heat not burn’ products and is the team’s title sponsor, has been going for more than 40 years, however.

BAT, the world’s second-biggest international tobacco company by revenue, bought Tyrrell in 1997 and competed as British American Racing (BAR) from 1999 to the end of 2005.