Ferrari’s F1 Race Suits Features ZYN

While I’d probably stop short of claiming ZYN is the Ferrari of nicotine pouches, the market-leading pouch is about to become more visible thanks to its appearance on the legendary motoring brand’s F1’s 2026 race suits.

Let’s see what’s happening.

PMI and Ferrari sponsorship

First off, this is not new news in several ways. For starters, ZYN’s parent company (Philip Morris International) has sponsored Ferrari for around 50 years. Secondly, the extension of this partnership was announced in early December last year. Instead, what was launched recently were the first pictures of Ferrari’s F1 team’s new race suits.

Emblazoned on the traditional red and white colours are several well-known brands, including Hewlett Packard, Shell, UniCredit, Puma, and, of course, ZYN. Ferrari has acknowledged the extension of its long-running partnership with Philip Morris International on its website, terming the deal a “new chapter” that will unfold during both Scuderia Ferrari HP and the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli one‑make series.

ZYN branding first appeared on the Ferrari SF‑25 during the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December 2025. This year, the brand is scheduled to appear on the Scuderia Ferrari HP Formula 1 livery but only at selected races, not every round of the season.

Blast from the past?

The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council voted to end tobacco sponsorship and advertising at FIA‑organised events since the end of the 2006 season, ending a long-running association between F1 and tobacco. Indeed, virtually every major F1 team had a cigarette brand on the car at some point since the late 1960s, with Marlboro, John Player Special, Camel, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, and Lucky Strike among the most memorable.

When the ZYN sponsorship news was announced in December, it triggered a slew of articles from the usual suspects like Tobacco Free Kids and Expose Tobacco, pretending they don’t know the difference between lethal cigarettes and smoke-free products that are orders of magnitude less harmful.

For example, Tobacco Free Kids has engaged in their typical Newspeak by calling a tobacco-free product “a highly addictive tobacco product”.

Interestingly, the drinks giant Heineken is also advertised at F1. However, a lot of the ads promote its alcohol-free range. Public health bodies have also contorted their bodies to jump through logical hoops to suggest that it is a kind of indirect advertisement or Trojan horse for the alcohol variety of Heineken. It’s all so tiresome, pun intended.

ZYN in pole position?

Of course, ZYN is not the only nicotine pouch brand to sponsor an F1 team.  British American Tobacco-owned VELO has been a major sponsor of the McLaren Formula 1 Team since 2019, and the collaboration has included special liveries, co‑branded fan campaigns, and VELO‑branded experiences and content across race weekends and esports series. However, like ZYN, visibility is adapted or removed in countries where nicotine or tobacco‑related advertising faces tighter regulation.

What to make of these sponsorships?

Public health bodies try to inflate the narrative that this kind of public advertising will cause youth to take up pouches in droves. However, market data severely undercuts these desperate last flails of increasingly irrelevant groups.

For starters, VELO has had a five-year head start on ZYN, yet it hasn’t translated into market dominance over the PMI brand.

Secondly, youth uptake is still minimal. Current use in the US and UK is well below 2%, suggesting that, at a minimum, if the 11-to-17-year-olds are a key target market, neither brand is getting its money’s worth. Some estimates indicate that under-18s made up around 10% of the overall F1 audience, so it’s clear that pouch brands are more interested in adults who can legally buy their products.

And this is the crucial point that a lot of anti-nicotine groups miss, time and again. There are still a considerable number of people who smoke, many of whom have been misled by the media and government about products like vaping. Visibility of brands like VELO and ZYN could help spark their curiosity and help them stop smoking by taking up pouches.

As WeWape and Considerate Pouchers director, Mark Oates notes, “By advertising through Formula 1, a product that can save millions of lives each year is being put in front of those who stand to gain the most from switching away from cigarettes. Nicotine pouches may yet prove to be one of the greatest public health inventions of this century.”