Nineteen U.S. attorneys general wrote to Formula 1 and the FIA on June 9, 2026, raising formal concerns about tobacco-related sponsorships in the sport — specifically the presence of nicotine pouch brands Zyn and Velo on the cars of Ferrari and McLaren, respectively. The letter, coordinated through Hawaii's AG office, framed the sponsorships as a potential violation of the spirit of tobacco advertising restrictions that have governed motorsport for decades.

The intervention did not emerge from nowhere. In March 2026, Reuters reported that health campaigners were already calling for a full ban, alleging that Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco were using Formula 1's global youth audience to rehabilitate nicotine brands through aspirational sport association. By December 2025, Zyn's deal with Ferrari had been expanded to include additional races and livery branding, sharpening that critique.

Zyn is owned by Swedish Match North America, a PMI subsidiary. Velo is a BAT brand. Neither product contains tobacco leaf — they deliver nicotine via a small pouch placed between the lip and gum — but the attorneys general's letter treated their manufacturer parentage as determinative. That classification question sits at the heart of the regulatory dispute: F1's existing framework bars traditional tobacco advertising, but nicotine pouches occupy a grey zone that neither the FIA's sporting code nor most national advertising standards anticipated.

The Market Context

The scale of what PMI and BAT are protecting makes the lobbying logic clear. The WHO warned on May 15, 2026, that the global nicotine pouch market was worth nearly $7 billion in 2025 — a figure that market analysts at GMI Insights put closer to $8.6 billion the same year, projecting growth to $56.7 billion by 2035. The U.S. is the engine of that expansion: the domestic market was valued at $3.95 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $49.54 billion by 2033, implying a 32.5% CAGR, according to GlobeNewswire research.

PMI has been constructing the infrastructure to match that trajectory. A $600 million Zyn manufacturing facility in Aurora, Colorado opened in early 2026. Production at Swedish Match's Owensboro, Kentucky plant is being expanded. PMI projected 500 new U.S. jobs from the combined investment push, wrapped in an "Invested in America" campaign launched in July 2025. In Europe, a CZK 2 billion-plus modernization of the Kutná Hora plant in the Czech Republic — with commercial Zyn production targeted for early 2026 — completes a supply chain being built for a multi-decade growth horizon.

PMI's confidence is qualified, not absolute. On July 22, 2025, the company reported Q2 net revenues of $10.14 billion, missing the analyst consensus of $10.33 billion, and shares fell roughly 7% on the day after Zyn shipment volumes disappointed. By February 2026, however, the narrative had shifted: PMI issued full-year 2026 profit guidance that beat analyst estimates, supported by Zyn volume growth of 19% in Q4 2025 even as competitor brands gained shelf space.

The Health and Regulatory Picture

The WHO's May 2026 warning was unambiguous on one point: nicotine itself is highly addictive and harmful, regardless of delivery mechanism. MD Anderson Cancer Center has noted that nicotine disrupts adolescent brain development, affects the cardiovascular system, and may cause oral health issues. Studies of Swedish pouch users have found elevated prevalence of oral mucosal lesions. The American Lung Association flags that nicotine concentrations vary significantly across brands, complicating both consumer assessment and regulatory benchmarking. Truth Initiative, for its part, notes that the specific long-term effects of products like Zyn remain unknown — a gap that regulators and litigators alike will try to fill in coming years.

BAT has already absorbed one market exit: it withdrew Velo from France on April 1, 2026, after French authorities moved against nicotine pouches. That retreat signals the jurisdictional patchwork manufacturers now navigate — loose in some markets, tightening fast in others.

The AGs' letter sits within that tightening arc. Whether F1 and the FIA treat it as a mandate or a courtesy notice will depend largely on whether U.S. race weekends — and the commercial relationships that fund them — are seen as worth the regulatory friction. Formula 1 has expanded aggressively in the American market, adding Las Vegas, Miami, and Austin to a calendar that now runs deep into U.S. primetime television. Tobacco-adjacent sponsorship disputes that generate state-level legal scrutiny are a different category of problem than the reputational skirmishes the sport has managed before.

PMI and BAT are not retreating from the category. The infrastructure investment, the Ferrari and McLaren livery deals, and the "Invested in America" framing are all consistent with a long-game strategy: normalize nicotine pouches as a post-combustion consumer product, anchor brand visibility in premium global platforms, and let market volume make the regulatory case for tolerance. The AGs' letter is an early, formal test of whether that strategy holds.