After a somewhat contentious relationship in recent years, Ferrari has removed sponsor Mission Winnow from its list of partners for the 2023 season. The partnership between Ferrari and Philip Morris International had initially expired in February 2022, only to be renewed on a smaller scale in April 2022. The Mission Winnow logo had appeared on the two red cars starting with the Suzuka Grand Prix in 2018, as Philip Morris had launched it for promoting new technologies.
However, Formula 1 has disapproved of the partnership between the Maranello team and Mission Winnow, with the Italian side not allowed Ferrari to fully enjoy the collaboration. So the relationship with the sponsor seems to end after three years intermittently.
Ferrari-Mission Winnow: a partnership with ups and downs
As mentioned above, the Mission Winnow logo appeared towards the end of the 2018 Formula One season, and then continued through ups and downs until the last race of the 2021 championship. However, Formula 1 has never appreciated Ferrari’s choice to opt for Mission Winnow as title sponsor. This is because it has been interpreted as a way to bring tobacco advertising back on a Formula 1 car, a practice which has been banned since 2006.
Furthermore, the sponsor has never always been present on the two cars, on the contrary. Very often the sponsor has been censored and removed from the livery of the single-seaters, probably to avoid any kind of problem. The branding had also appeared on the rear wings of the SF21 and in bright green on the engine cover in 2021, as well as being visible in cameras on the car’s nose.
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While the list of participants for the 2022 championship saw the team’s name change to Scuderia Ferrari, the now former team principal Mattia Binotto had spoken at the time of ongoing discussions with Philip Morris regarding the possibility of renewing.
“We are discussing it at the moment. They were our title sponsor and if you look at the way we entered our team for the next championship, it’s no longer called Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow, just Scuderia Ferrari. I think the answer is clear enough. But there are still plenty of opportunities to collaborate with them, keeping them as partners.” – Mattia Binotto explained at that moment.
Statements that obviously now seem totally in opposition with the decision taken by Ferrari. Although it has not yet issued any official press release, the logo no longer appears on the list of partners. Everything suggests therefore that the collaboration between the two parties will not continue in 2023 and beyond. This would mean ending the partnership with a huge company like Philip Morris who accompanied the Prancing Horse in the most glorious years of Ferrari history.
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