Bahrain public unrest

[copperkipper1]

It should be called off...
200+ injured?
many killed?

I dont see how any ambulance/medical employees will want to attend the GP after getting beaten for treating the wounded...

[WhiteBlue]

At least there is now regret and apology from the royal family.

Fellow citizens of Bahrain: I hope that we can join hands, work together and communicate with all political forces in the country. Join us to calm the situation so that we can call a day of mourning for our lost sons.

I think there is a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, and on that note I would like to extend my condolences to all of the families who lost loved ones and all of those who have been injured. We are terribly sorry and this is a terrible tragedy for our nation.

Gulfnews.com say that the decision is made to postpone the race.

[ESPImperium]

http://en.espnf1.com/bahrain/motorsport ... 41407.html
http://en.espnf1.com/bahrain/motorsport ... 41421.html

Looking like its gonna be either canceled or posponed.

As for testing, id like to see this happen now:

Next Week: Paul Ricard to try a diffrent variation each day (Single Car - 4 day)
Week After: Motorland Aragon for its back straight to low downforce (Dual Car - 3 day to allow Test Drivers some time in the cars)

[ringo]

Leave the people alone and let them do what they want to themselves.

Dear Hamad

I'm looking forward to our annual jamboree in your country. The hospitality is wonderful and you make everyone feel so welcome. Well, apart from those folk cluttering up your main square, but they really got in the way of the traffic didn't they?

Anyway, I hope you don't me interfering with your internal affairs, but some of our sponsors are a bit sqeamish. Would you mind awfully if I ask that you move any bodies and blood before we arrive? The colour of spilt blood clashes with the red on the Vodafone, Virgin & Ferrari logos. I did suggest they change to blue because they shouldn't let their choice of logo cause you to change your people management policies, but some people don't understand realpolotik do they?

Sorry to add to your woes, Ferrari are threatening to sue because they gave exclusive rights to Dubai for spraying the place Ferrari Red (TM). Could you ask your people to eat blueberries or something to change the colour?

Oh, and please keep any shooting out of earshot of the circuit. Jensen is still a bit twitchy after Sao Paulo last year. I keep reminding him of my thoughts at the time. "Heh Jense, I say "only losers get shot".

Love Bernie

ps - please wash your hands before presenting the prizes.

Yep, leave them be. Their country they can do what they want with it.

Euro and US sell poor countries arms and missiles, try to control them remotely then when things get out of hand pretend like you're holier than thou and turn on the same dictators you empower.

300 people murdered in lybia with British weapons, no mention of that. 5 dead in bahrain is so barbaric.

Europe has a history of barbarism, even in the last century. Don't make it look as if what is happening in Bahrain is any worse than has happened in European and american history.
Especially in in the 50s and 60s, where certain people had no basic human rights at all. F1 races ran just the same. Not to mention 20+ South African GPs held before some bright spark in the fia realized what apartheid was.

I couldnt give a rat's ass about how holding the Bahrain GP reflects on the FIA or Europe or the UK. Take my word for it, it wont change a thing on how the world outside of Europe and US thinks about the institution of the FIA.

Let the races begin!! the world will continue during and after the race. Nothing will change.

And i want a North Korean and Zimbabwe GP added to the calender as well.

Stop trying to police the world man.

[Scorpaguy]

....ditto to what Ringo said. Its a bloomin' car race. ...and next year maybe F1 will have better data to schedule from.

[FW17]

Possible dates if postponed

17 April – Chinese Grand Prix
24 April
1 May
8 May – Turkish Grand Prix

11 September – Italian Grand Prix
18 September
25 September – Singapore Grand Prix

30 October – Indian Grand Prix
6 November
13 November – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

I don't see the possibility of race being replaced with another middle east GP in Qatar with the talk of postponement. Looks like BE will bend over backward to see the GP happen. Cant imagine the same lenience given to some of the other venues.

[WhiteBlue]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... idday.html?

Interesting reading about the clout Al Khalifa has with the FiA. One should also consider that they own 30% of McLaren. They also have the support of the Arabian Sunni leaders who control many teams and automotive manufacturers by their investment.

It looks like postponement is the most convenient option with a big additional cash tip to Bernie to facilitate the necessary calendar mods.

[n_anirudh]

Well why cant we have a Dubai GP, I belibve Dubai has an FIA approved Grade 1 circuit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Autodrome

I believe teams/FIA/FOM can make an exception to the "no 2 GPs ina country rule" and host an event there. would solve most logistical problems if Sakhir event is cancelled.

Isnt there a condition that if a country cannot host a race in the current year, then it cannot host it in the subsequent year as well??

Hope everything is sorted out soon

[Gaara]

According to f1arab

http://www.f1arab.com/2011/02/21/bahrain-gp-postponed/

F1 teams already have a "secret" agreement not to go to Bahrain.

[Richard]

Bahrain GP is cancelled, yes the GP not just the testing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 402871.stm

[WhiteBlue]

http://twitter.com/#!/IAA_Bahrain

"The Official Twitter Channel for the Information Affairs Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain"

#Bahrain International Circuit announces Bahrain's withdrawal from first race in #F1 season.

Yes it is official. Now we need to learn what they will do about a possible postponement.

This solution was obvious from the moment the royal family decided to bring in the military on Thursday night. The termination of the military siege on Friday was never going to work for the race to take place. Time for the process of negotiating a new constitution or government is too long to accommodate a GP in between. The race was always going to attract massive dispute and possible disaster if it had gone ahead. I must say I'm very pleased that the issue of the GP contributed to take the fate of the Bahrain nation out of the hands of the hard liners and created a chance for peace. This massively out weights the irritation over having to wait two more weeks for our first 2011 race.

[ringo]

It makes no sense have it at a later date. The season will be too drawn out.
It would be interesting if they could move up another GP to the same date as the canceled bahrain GP.
Even though that weekend could be used for further testing.

[mep]

Good to hear it is cancelled.
I don't regret it for a second.
When they can't go there the following year even better.

[andrew]

Only sensible decision to make.

[Agenda_Is_Incorrect]

This is over reacting. The media is making this look more widespread than it is.
You can't punish another country by sanctions in some form or another because you can't impose your culture and beliefs on them.
Seen this too many times in European and american history. Leave the people alone and let them do what they want to themselves.

Yes you can do sanctions and they are approved by the UN and every country that has signed in it, which is almost everyone and also the mentioned ones. It's considered to be a better choice than going to war and allowed when a basic human right or commonly accorded principle has been violated. Those principles are considered to be above cultural differences and can legally and acceptedly be imposed and punished and those countries agreed with this. In fact, after signing for it, you have to obey them and it's mandatory to react against violators or accepting punition from violating them.

Unhappily, sometimes those sanctions can be worst and less productive than war, but all kinds of people who think peace always come for free or peacefully wouldn't agree and there's plenty of it in UN and in diplomacy (or Governmental Press Release in this case). Also, both violators and violence opposition seems to many times use this prohibition and obligation to react as it's convenient and they do it mostly in the "politically correct" way. That means that if you don't react it's because you are not a imperialistic nation that wants to impose culture and if you do it's because you have to defend against human rights violations for the future of the World. Mostly they do or do not when it's good for them and that's also true for the violators, who respect the agreement when they want and give the same excuses.

I appreciate that you try to keep things as separated from politics as possible, but in this case it's impossible to separate things and a GP there just wouldn't be right. We should all be glad that first things got priority.

Besides, mind you that if you are against racism it's impossible to go for the don't impose things to other people. Would it be ok if nobody else couldn't or wouldn't do a thing in a genocide or apartheid just to not interfere? What if that was applied to a specific population in your country that was claiming to have a different culture and therefore they could be racists without anyone doing anything about it, would you like it?

That has happened in the history of every continent and will keep happening.

The solution by Manchild seems even worse to me. Stripping the nationality out of things would be the way to go to initiate a global identity crisis that would mostly only replace current ideologies with another ones with disastrous consequences. Nationalities aren't a problem, they are a solution. The problem is what some people and governments do with it.