Pepsi set to team up with Williams

Soft drinks giant PepsiCo announced a return to Formula One involvement on Tuesday with a deal linking their 7UP brand to Williams.

PepsiCo Beverages International said in a statement that 7UP would become Williams' "official soft drink partner" from 2002.

The three-year agreement covers off-track activities and the distinctive green and red brand -- Jordan's main sponsor in 1991 -- will not be seen on the blue and white BMW-powered cars.

No financial details were given and promotional plans were not divulged by Pepsi for strategic reasons.

However, team principal Frank Williams told Reuters that the deal, while comparatively modest, was an important one that could grow over time.

He saw it as an encouraging sign for Formula One after some teams recently expressed fears of a looming financial crisis, worsened by the September 11 attacks on America.

"The money is not major sponsorship but it is important to the company because Pepsi is an immensely well-regarded international brand," Williams said in an interview in his office.

GOOD NEWS

"It's a good news story definitely but I would suspect there will be other good news stories coming out into the open in the next two or three months," he continued.

"I've seen the comments from some of the teams that it's very hard and it is very hard for everybody from top to bottom. But business is meant to be hard, business is never easy."

He cited a nature documentary he had watched recently about the Siberian fox, an animal that managed to find food despite sub-zero temperatures and snow banks two metres deep.

"There is business to be done, the world hasn't fallen over and collapsed commercially. It has just slowed up," he said.

Prost are considered the team most at risk but bosses such as British American Racing's Craig Pollock and Minardi's Paul Stoddart have warned of others possibly going under.

However, some Formula One sources have seen such alarmist comments in the context of the teams' efforts to try and secure a far greater share of future television revenues.

Williams agreed there was a risk of one team maybe not making it through the winter.

"F1 RESILIENT"

"I think the worst that will happen is that it will change hands," he said. "But it may survive anyway. Formula One is resilient because the people in it are extraordinarily determined."

The Pepsi deal is the team's first with a multinational producer of fast-moving consumer goods since they ended tobacco sponsorship in 1999.

Williams now have predominantly high-tech backers after a wide variety of previous sponsors.

Saudi Arabia, and the bin Laden family, were prominent sponsors in the early 1980s before cigarette brands Camel, Rothmans and Winfield in the 1990s.

Williams said the team's blue and white code -- the corporate colours of BMW -- remained inviolate. He expected a new replacement to appear on the car for departing telecoms sponsor Nortel Networks.