Ferrari Man meets the Marlboro Man

The new authorised biography of Michael Schumacher, currently one of the best-selling sports books in Britain, is an exercise in promoting Marlboro cigarettes, according to an expert in the building of brands through sport.

Driving Force: The Official Inside Story of the Formula One Icon has sold 12,000 copies in its six weeks on sale in Britain. It comprises 124 pages of photographs taken by the world-renowned fashion photographer Michel Comte, dominating a mere 70 pages of text written by Schumacher's personal public relations executive Sabine Kehm.

Some of the photographs naturally feature Schumacher in his race overalls, almost all of which prominently feature Marlboro, the nearest Ferrari has to a title sponsor. Marlboro pays around £20 million every year to have its name associated with the most successful team in Formula One.

But according to an expert, the many other pages of photographs showing Schumacher away from the racetrack appear to be designed to promote Marlboro, too. He cites a series of images of a shirtless Schumacher on horseback taken at an American ranch, including one prominently placed at the front of the book which goes as far as to depict Schumacher - a non-smoker - with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

"All the imagery in this book provides an effective platform for supporting the Marlboro brand associated with Schumacher and Ferrari,'' explained Lindsay Gomer of Global Marketing Communications. "It is achieved through implicit suggestion and lifestyle association.

"The pictures of him on horseback are extremely similar to Marlboro's advertising imagery. The whole strategy-of the brand over the last 30 years has been built around a cowboy on horseback. These images are clearly linked to that core brand advertising.