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Ferrari has given the required seven days notice to change their name back to Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow before the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Scuderia outfit removed "Mission Winnow" before the Australian Grand Prix as Mission Winnow is under investigation by the Australian Health Department.
Mission Winnow is the brainchild of Philip Morris International, an American cigarette and tobacco manufacturing company. Ferrari has had a very longstanding and lucrative relationship with Philip Morris International as PMI are the owners of the Marlboro brand who were Ferrari's title sponsor from 1996 until 2011.
The 'Mission Winnow' name and logo were first seen on the Ferrari's cars at the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix. Philip Morris is using the Mission Winnow concept to bring in a new era for the tobacco company which has ambitions to develop and market "smoke-free alternatives" to cigarettes.
Mission Winnow describe themselves as a Philip Morris International driven initiative who demonstrates their commitment to continuous innovation and development of new solutions that can expedite positive change for society.
However, the Mission Winnow website says that they are working for 1.1 billion smokers and it is this that has caused the initiative to be put under investigation from the European Union amongst others. The concern that is being investigated is that Mission Winnow might actually be contravening restrictions on tobacco and cigarette promotion.
The investigation in Australia led Ferrari to strip all references to Mission Winnow from the team while they were in Melbourne. The Italian team dropped the name for the race weekend and removed the logo from the cars and all their clothes. The cars had displayed the logo across their rear wing in testing but were plain for the season's opener.
The entry list for the remainder of the season is expected to be updated for the next round in Bahrain and it is believed that Mission Winnow will remain on the name for the next three races.
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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Replies (5)
Login to replyDert38
Posts: 376
Mission sh*t :)
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
For the record, I'm all for legalizing tobacco advertisent. But while it is illegal, this thing Ferrari is doing is preposterous. A, mockery of the rules. It's also not the first time Marlboro comes up with some logo that resembles their original logo
Dert38
Posts: 376
They should smoke less and learn how to build a car with that Mercedes can emulate competition!
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Maybe that's why McLaren had that MGU-K failure? They went in too deep with BAT, and fed the PU with tobacco until it literally choked from it.
Ram Samartha
Posts: 1,172
I agree, I don't think it's a big deal if it's on there, but while it's illegal they shouldn't be pulling this micky mouse bullshit.