Quote Originally Posted by Mirek View Post
Yes but that's something different because the negative effect is not directly connected with the sporting activity itself and it's not promoted by the activity. The point is that for some people and some potential sponsors motorsport is simply something they refuse in principle because it represents something wrong for them. In fact it's rather impossible to find a bulletproof argument against that because in general they are right.
Exactly. It's perception.

Funnily enough a couple of months ago I came across the document below while randomly looking up big companies that I thought theoretically could be involved in rallying. I came across this document from Telia (no doubt many of you are familiar with it, but it's a big phone services provider across Scandinavia and the Baltic states, prime rally country) where they particularly rule out motor sport sponsorship in their group marketing instructions:

Requirement 8
Sponsorships and donations cannot be
o related to political support (i.e. to political parties, politicians or related institutions)
o conducted in a way that it can be interpreted as a political payment or bribery
o related to the process of obtaining or retaining business from the recipient, i.e. it must be
ensured that the person who has the power to make business decisions, such as
awarding contracts, licenses or permits, is not involved in the sponsored object
o provided to individuals
o provided to organizations, activities or events believed to be discriminating or unethical,
e.g. related to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, weapons, pornography
o provided to activities or events that will have significant negative environmental impact,
e.g. motor sports and activities which include handing out a large amount of disposables
o provided to religious or military activities
From Page 4: https://www.teliacompany.com/globala...-donations.pdf

Look at the stuff motors sport joins on that list... This is why at least the upper level rallying going electric in some form is not a choice, it's an absolute necessity if the WRC in particular is going to continue to exist in a few years. Hopefully we can get away with just going down the hybrid route and retaining the ICE element, not going full electric.