Speaking of free money. I feel like the push from Liberty to remove our $100 million bonus is a massive negotiation behind closed doors.
What I think has happened:
1. Ferrari feels entitled to the $100mil but Liberty is not going to put up with it for long
2. A deal could not be reached so it was agreed that Ferrari can bring back it's pseudo cigarette branding as long as it wasn't too obvious.
3. Phillip Morris (who's leader just so happened to replace SM after his death) comes up with the genius way to do this by creating the concept that they are going to look to the future, to improve and find new and healthier ways to pass their products to consumers. They call this Mission Winnow. They use winnowing as an allusion to portray their challenge of switching from smoked cigarettes to something better for the people. The beauty is they can use their mission logo which resembles the marlboro logo we are all so familiar with. In a way, this is very similar to what Beer companies are doing, IE Heineken "When you drive never drink". It seems as long as these type of sponsors are pursuing advertising in a way that is promoting safety of their consumers then they are able to avoid specific bans.
4. It all ties together perfectly. Liberty can take back the $100 million and distribute it however they need. Ferrari gets its multi million dollar sponsorship back (which also brings in additional money to the sport). And Phillip Morris is once again able to advertise its brand, pseudonimacly anyways.
If this is somewhat true, then Sergio's "We will quit F1" was his way of saying to Liberty "If you take our $100million you must consider allowing our main sponsor to have their branding on our cars"
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