Bahrain Has Stabilised, Says FIA at BetLM

Bahrain Has Stabilised, Says FIA

The FIA made its deci­sion to rein­state the Bahrain Grand Prix to the F1 cal­en­dar after a report revealed the country’s sit­u­a­tion has “stabilised”.

The pres­i­dent of the sport’s world gov­ern­ing body Jean Todt told the BBC the FIA voted unan­i­mously after advice from vice-president Car­los Gracia.

“Our spe­cial envoy had many meet­ings in Bahrain, even with the human rights peo­ple respon­si­ble,” said Todt.

“He found a sta­ble sit­u­a­tion, a quiet one, and we unan­i­mously agreed.”

The race, orig­i­nally due to be held on 13 March, was called off in Feb­ru­ary because of pro-democracy protests in which more than 20 peo­ple died and will now be held on 30 October.

Todt added: “Carlos’s report was dis­cussed by the World Coun­cil and the deci­sion was taken to accept to re-programme the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2011.

“We got a request from the oppo­si­tion to the gov­ern­ment to run the event and Car­los met with many peo­ple, includ­ing those work­ing on the cir­cuit, those in all the sub­urbs of the cap­i­tal, and the report came back after that.

“The mes­sages com­ing out are about peace, about restor­ing a good sit­u­a­tion in this part of the world. Lots of other author­i­ties have been encour­ag­ing [things] to go back to nor­mal. My think­ing is that, as a sport­ing body, we must support that.”

How­ever Avaaz, an inter­na­tional cam­paign­ing organ­i­sa­tion, issued a state­ment in which they con­tra­dicted the FIA’s find­ings.

“Claims that calm has been restored and life is back to nor­mal in Bahrain are com­pletely untrue,” said cam­paign direc­tor Alex Wilks. “In the last week the police have con­tin­ued to use tear gas, rub­ber bul­lets and sound grenades to break up peace­ful marches, killing and injur­ing dozens of people.”

The BBC’s F1 reporter Ted Kravitz said that FIA pres­i­dent Todt has given him­self a get-out clause to can­cel the race if the secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in Bahrain dete­ri­o­rates over the com­ing months.

Todt said that the sit­u­a­tion in the Gulf King­dom would be mon­i­tored ahead of the sched­uled race. “If we have clear evi­dence that there is a risky sit­u­a­tion this will obvi­ously be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion,” he said.

The FIA said the unan­i­mous deci­sion to put the race back on “reflects the spirit of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in Bahrain”.

A state of emer­gency in Bahrain was lifted on 1 June, but there have been reports of fur­ther vio­lence in the cap­i­tal Man­ama on the day of the decision.

Wilks added: “On Mon­day, 47 Bahraini doc­tors and nurses who sim­ply pro­vided treat­ment to injured pro­test­ers have been charged by a mil­i­tary court with attempt­ing to top­ple the kingdom’s monarchy.

“White­wash­ing these abuses is an insult to the hun­dreds of pro­test­ers jailed and dozens killed in their strug­gle for change. The FIA’s deci­sion to go ahead with the race based on one blink­ered account of the sit­u­a­tion shows how money has pre­vailed over morals.

“The main organ­i­sa­tion that has pro­vided this infor­ma­tion, the Bahrain-based National Insti­tute of Human Rights, is closely asso­ci­ated with the Bahraini Gov­ern­ment and it appears the FIA inves­ti­ga­tor failed to con­tact any of the other key human rights organ­i­sa­tions on the ground.

“Now it is up to the teams to stand up for what is right and boy­cott the race.”

Red Bull dri­ver Mark Web­ber remains uncer­tain that the resched­uled race will take place. The Aus­tralian, 34, wrote on his offi­cial web­site: “Even though a deci­sion has been made, I’ll be highly sur­prised if the Bahrain Grand Prix goes ahead this year.

“As a com­peti­tor I do not feel at all com­fort­able going there to com­pete in an event when, despite reas­sur­ances to the con­trary, it seems inevitable that it will cause more ten­sion for the peo­ple of that country.”

Todt, how­ever, dis­missed Webber’s com­ments as per­sonal opin­ion rather than a reflec­tion of the F1 field as a whole.

The For­mula One Teams Asso­ci­a­tion (Fota), which groups all the teams except His­pania, said it was assess­ing the situation.

“That (FIA) deci­sion is likely to be dis­cussed inter­nally within Fota, and a more detailed joint posi­tion may be defined after those dis­cus­sions have taken place,” it said.

How­ever, Fota vice-president and Fer­rari team boss Ste­fano Domeni­cali — who also has a seat on the world coun­cil — is under­stood to have voted in favour of restor­ing Bahrain to the 2011 calendar.

Force India owner Vijay Mallya is also believed to have voted in favour of a return to Bahrain.

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