West became the main sponsor of the small German Formula One team Zakspeed. The best result of the team was Martin Brundle's 5th place at the 1987 San Marino Grand Prix. Sponsorship continued until 1989, when the team left the competition. It was also the sponsor of the McLaren Formula One team (known as "West McLaren Mercedes") from 1997 to July 2005. West terminated its relationship with McLaren due to a European Union ban on tobacco advertising in 2005 and Vodafone and Emirates became their primary sponsor from 2006 onwards. In countries where tobacco advertising already was banned on a local level (like Germany and France), West used certain logos, covered the West logos with black gaps, put the first names of the drivers ("Mika" for Mika Häkkinen, "David" for David Coulthard, "Juan Pablo" for Juan Pablo Montoya, "Kimi" for Kimi Raikkonen, and so on) or put "East" on their cars, referring to East Germany at the time to circumvent those laws.