Looking at F1 cars out on the track, we are blessed that they all seem to have relatively distinctive colour schemes that allow us to tell the teams apart. Of course, that doesn't help us to tell the difference between the drivers, but that's what helmets and little flashes of colour on the cars are for.

Mind you, sometimes there can be quite a bit of confusion when a team has a blue car, both its drivers have - basically - white helmets, and the flashes on the cars are either so small or fairly well hidden that you can barely see them as the car shoots past.

Most of the colour schemes on F1 cars aren't determined by the teams, but by the sponsors. (It makes for an interesting thought if the teams were allowed to paint the cars in any colours and any scheme they liked - then there would be no trouble telling the cars apart!)

In IndyCars, it is quite usual for different cars in the same team to be sponsored by different organisations and so have completely different paint schemes - in a way, it is the driver who is sponsored rather than the team.

F1 sponsorship is different in that a single organisation will tend to be the main sponsor of the team, and so both the cars will be painted in "company colours".

It's quite interesting to look through the field and look at some of the sponsors. As this is motor racing, we'd naturally expect to see a predominance of motor-related organisations as sponsors. But it isn't so, is it?

To be sure, there are Mercedes, Ford, Peugeot, Yamaha, Goodyear, Shell, Agip and some others. But they're not so much sponsors as suppliers - they actually provide some form of product for the team to use.

Then there are the companies that seem to have nothing to do with motor racing whatsoever. The Benetton group, for example, now owns a team, but before that they were primarily known for their clothing - and probably still are to the great majority of people. There's Korean Air and Red Bull. There was 7Up and Pioneer. MTV and Asics. Ireland and Parmalat. The list goes on and on. (And it's a good thing it does, otherwise there wouldn't be F1 racing as we know it.)

But there is one group that I have left out of all this, so far, who seem to have a presence that almost dominates throughout the entire field: the tobacco companies.

Already we have the Marlboro McLarens, the Rothmans Williams, the Mild Seven Benettons, the Gauloises Ligiers. Added on to that for 1996 we have the Benson and Hedges Jordan team. (A few years ago there was also Camel Lotus.) Go further through the field, and the Tyrrell team has some sponsorship from Mild Seven, Ferrari from Marlboro, and there are the many drivers who are part of - read "are sponsored by" - the Marlboro World Championship Team.

There are a couple of things here that don't quite gel to me. But, before that, let me make it clear that I am a smoker, so I am biased in favour of tobacco advertising, as it is a product that is legally-purchaseable in many (including mine) countries.

I find it fascinating that the tobacco companies still want to put their massive funds into motor sport. More and more around the Western world, there are moves to stop tobacco usage, and tobacco advertising has been banned in many countries. In the British, French and German GP, the cars usually race with team names replacing the tobacco brand names because of local bans on advertising. For some strange reason, the teams are allowed to retain their paint schemes and colours - but that's beside the point at the moment.

If the trend against tobacco is driven by the public, as we are led to believe, why is it that the companies still pour their money into a sport that is still basically Euro-centric? All the teams are based in Europe, the sponsors tend to be European-based, the races are certainly European-based with 11 of the 16-race series being held in Europe and, I would suspect, the vast majority of the viewing audience would be Europeans.

At the same time, we are often told about the queue of countries that would love to have an F1 GP. For some strange reason, these countries all seem to fall outside the boundaries of what might be called Western Europe; countries in the Far East, the Middle East, South America and Asia. Quite aside from the question of what benefit would the presence of a GP do for these countries, it is notable that many (most?) of these countries have little restriction on tobacco.

Check out the tobacco companies' annual reports and you'll find that they are moving heavily into the areas listed above. "Burgeoning" and "expanding" are two of the most commonly used words.

Western feelings against tobacco have turned smokers into pariahs, but they are still allowed to smoke and the companies are still allowed to peddle their products.

So it would seem that with a decreasing market in the "Western, developed" countries and with a growing market in many other areas of the world, the tobacco companies should be winding down their support of motor racing, and F1 in particular.

Until you take into account those countries queuing up to host an F1 GP.

They're all in the areas that yet have to impose bans on tobacco, so it seems somewhat natural for the companies to focus their attention on those countries - and, perhaps, to lend their support (ie. sponsorship dollars) to the establishment of an F1 GP.

Indeed, you may well ask whether it is those countries themselves that want the GPs ... or whether it is the tobacco companies.

(And that still leaves the unanswered question of just why do tobacco companies sponsor F1 when it is still so Euro-centric?)

But that's just me.