Bahrain GP situation: postponed, reinstated, cancelled

[strad]

They made 193million off the race in 2010 according to the Guardian, so no matter how you slice it, cancellation costs a lot.

[Speedster]

At the same time had Bahrain lost their GP last year and the return wasn't on the cards would we even be discussing the situation now?

Here is the real problem from Bernie and F1s point of view.
We pissed them off by cancelling last year..What do you think they will do if it is cancelled again?
They'll say goodbye and don't come back. And that is what worries Bernie..Not only did he lose money last year and this year, he will lose down the road.
Money is all Bernie and FOM care about.
I find it interesting that there are so many on here who don't care about the downtrodden and abused.

Bahrain is more dependent on Bernie than vice versa in my opinion. Formula 1 will find another circuit if needed. I think it's more a matter of pride for Bernie, he might think the same race canceled for consecutive years is not good for his image.

[WhiteBlue]

Actually I believe that the reason F1 has become a political symbol is down to those who called for the race to be cancelled and the media. The former are guilty of politicising F1 by calling for the FIA to cancel the race based on the politics of the region. And the media are guilty for blaming implicating F1 in justifying violence by their mere presence, rather than decrying the use of violence (by either side) in the first place.

This is your opinion and naturally you may have reasons why you have come to it. I do not see it that way at all and I also have sound reasons for my view.

Let us shortly remember what happened with last years race because it was cancelled due to security concerns. The earlier postponement had the door opened for the teams to simply refuse to go and that had elegantly killed the race in 2011.

This year there were no huge issues like hundreds of tanks on the streets and the security situation is debatable. Nevertheless IMO the FiA has the obligation to protect all participants and should not have allowed the race to go forward. Unfortunately Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa - the second son of the king - has organized the middle east in support of Jean Todt's 2009 FiA presidential election campaign and has Todt by the balls as a result. Supposedly Todt needs those votes for his re election or the election of his successor next year. And here comes the political angle.

The Al-Khalifa propaganda machine decided to use the F1 race as the "uniF1cation" campaign. The crown prince who runs the military and F1 had his brother call in their chips with Todt. This was the kind of political abuse that normally would not be tolerated by the FiA. Unfortunately Todt is politically in bed with the perpetrators and nothing will be done against it.

The protesters were not the first to make a political issue of F1. It was the crown prince and his brother. At least that is my view and I think I have good reasons to see it that way.

I think that Bernie's position is very simple. He knows about Todt's predicament and a cancellation of the race will reduce his turn over and profit. He has the moral elasticity to see the whole affair as a business matter. So unless he is forced by circumstances he will simply take the path to the highest profit as usual. He might even watch the race from London while all the rest of the circus has to take the risk to go to Bahrain.

In the meantime there is a report that a female member of the Williams catering team was fired because she refused to go to Bahrain on moral grounds.

3x edited: Abdullah is the second son of king Hamad and brother to the crown prince Salman

[Pup]

Listening to you guys, you'd think no sport had ever been used for political purposes.

The problem the FIA has with Bahrain isn't that F1 is in danger of becoming politicized, but that it's in danger of that politicization going out of style if they don't hold the race.

They're a bit like an insurance company that doesn't want to pay up on a policy.

[PlatinumZealot]

Ok there are two F1 journos already in Bahrain. If you're on Twitter I suggest giving them a look. Very interesting stuff. Lee McKenzie said today after seeing Ian Parkes tweets, she's worried.

Police marching on protestors
[img]https://p.twimg.com/AqnDiTGCQAIvAb_.jpg[img]

Here's a cordon of about 14 police cars and 50 policemen blocking one road out of Salmabad.
[img]https://p.twimg.com/AqnGYhXCQAA9zdS.jpg[img]

And here's an abandoned street where the locals threw down bricks from a.building site and set a fire to block police
[img]https://p.twimg.com/AqnGs_LCAAMS4aB.jpg[img]

One protester preparing his petrol bomb getting ready to do battle.
[img]https://p.twimg.com/AqnG_JYCAAEDjWS.jpg[img]

Hundreds of women joined the earlier march. The one woman in the foreground here prepared as she is wearing a gas mask
[img]https://p.twimg.com/AqnHwedCQAEzUfU.jpg[img]

In this pic you can see the locals with petrol bombs in hand ready for their fight with the police
[img]https://p.twimg.com/AqnIkcSCQAAFHmD.jpg[img]


All words & images are courtesy of:

https://twitter.com/#!/ianparkesf1

https://twitter.com/#!/byronf1

THIS protest, though, was nothing to do with F1. It just happens to be this week. chants were "Down with Hamad". Bahrain not a happy place.

what are they protesting? Getting up early in the morning to protest what exactly?

[Crucial_Xtreme]

what are they protesting? Getting up early in the morning to protest what exactly?

This particular protest was over the death of local cameraman Ahmed Ismael Hassan Al Samadi. However it's reflective & representative of what takes place regularly in Bahrain according to reporters.

[myurr]

This video highlights why I tend to be a little bit sceptical of events and how they are depicted in the media. It shows in a very neutral way how many photo's are staged. http://vimeo.com/29280708

There have also been plenty of times where photographers or governments have been caught manufacturing photographs or even photoshopping images to depict a particular narrative.

I have no idea one way or the other if that is happening here but from personal experience and from the many sources on the internet where it has been shown that news is manufactured, to a degree, I start from a sceptical position. I have no doubts that those photos show 30 people protesting something or other, and the first picture shows 6 police officers standing in a line. But beyond that do we have any definitive clue as to what is actually going on?

@WhiteBlue - you raise a lot of very interesting points that I don't know anywhere near enough to start to refute or confirm what you have claimed. You are accusing Todt and the FIA of a very very high level of corruption. Can I ask what your sources are for all the above? A quick google didn't find any media sources for this, why hasn't it been more widely reported?

If what you say is true then that is a very dire situation at the FIA that requires full investigation and possibly Todt's suspension.

Whilst I agree that the FIA has a certain duty of care to protect participants, we still race in places like Brazil where security is a huge concern. As you point out the situation in Bahrain isn't anywhere near as bad as last year, and the photographs of protests look small scale and contained, so is Bahrain really more dangerous for the crew than Brazil?

@Pup - yeah sport has been used as a political weapon countless times over the years. That doesn't make it right, or particularly effective, so i don't see why continuing that trend is a good thing.

[myurr]

@Crucial_Xtreme - I've just read a little bit about Ahmed Ismael Hassan Al Samadi. It would appear that he was shot in the leg two weeks ago but died in hospital. The accusation is that he was shot by armed men accompanying security forces and that he was targeted for carrying a video camera.

The Bahraini police force are investigating the incident and treating it as a murder investigation.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/32279 ... ivists.htm has some background info, including that lovely sentence regarding the firing of live rounds at the crowd that "the claim could not be verified".

If Ahmed Ismael Hassan Al Samadi was shooting video at the time, wouldn't he have captured the gunmen on film, or at least have captured the sound of gunfire? Perhaps the camera wasn't rolling, but it's stated that he was filming the security forces firing tear gar into the crowd so it sounds like he was trying to shoot what was going on.

I don't know what's going on on the ground, but is it as clear cut as people claim? Almost certainly not.

[WhiteBlue]

@WhiteBlue - you raise a lot of very interesting points that I don't know anywhere near enough to start to refute or confirm what you have claimed. You are accusing Todt and the FIA of a very very high level of corruption. Can I ask what your sources are for all the above? A quick google didn't find any media sources for this, why hasn't it been more widely reported?

If what you say is true then that is a very dire situation at the FIA that requires full investigation and possibly Todt's suspension.

Whilst I agree that the FIA has a certain duty of care to protect participants, we still race in places like Brazil where security is a huge concern. As you point out the situation in Bahrain isn't anywhere near as bad as last year, and the photographs of protests look small scale and contained, so is Bahrain really more dangerous for the crew than Brazil?

Most of my sources are simply memory of the reports of FiA politics.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/sport/46266/wh ... bahrain-gp
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1204/S ... rights.htm

These are contemporary sources which agree with my memory. I also took care to check my memory with Joe Saward today. He confirmed that Abdullah, the crown prince's brother was the FiA official who organized the presidential campaign in the middle east for Todt in September and October 2009. Abdullah has been made a member of the World Motor Sport Counsil (WMSC) of the FiA as reward for his support when Todt was elected.

I generally agree with the way Todt conducts his office. Therefore I see a call for resignation as exaggerated. But one has to be aware of the political forces in the back ground to appreciate the rather inconsistent policy of allowing a political demonstration by the organizers of the Bahrain race.

I agree that these dependencies should receive more publicity and perhaps that can put pressure on Todt to revise his decision.

The reason why there is no more wide spread talk about these things is simple. Todt and Ecclestone control the access to F1 for journalists. You have to be pretty brave to run a frontal attack on those guys if you intend to make a living in F1.

As I have said before there is enough evidence for the FiA to cancel the race on security grounds. Security problems in other countries like Brazil where F1 races are not so immediately related to a freedom and human rights fight but rather to poverty and social problems.

But the real straw that breaks the camel's back is the continued turning of a blind eye to the Al-Khalifa's propaganda manipulations.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@ WB

It may be true, but you could never prove anything of the sort. This is nothing more than circumstantial evidence.
I agree with what you say, but if you are going to level these sort of accusations and make them stick you need News of The World(scandalous and now defunct British newspaper) style methods to garner evidence.
I'm guessing you dont have that sort of clout.

Todt, CVC, FIA and Ecclestone will be praying nothing goes wrong. Because they are calling the protesters bluff on this. Positive spin to make the world sit up and take notice of your plight, he says.
I wonder what Mr Abdullah thinks of that!

[WhiteBlue]

@ WB
It may be true, but you could never prove anything of the sort. This is nothing more than circumstantial evidence.

What have I said that I cannot prove?

• Abdullah ran Todt's middle east campaign - solid media reports about that
• Todt promoted Abdullah to vice president motor sport of the FiA - just check with FiA web site
• Todt needs Abdullah again for the elections next year - it is irrefutable regardless of wether he wants to make a stand himself or influence the election of his successor
• Abdullah has Todt by the balls - well, it is a bit paraphrasing, but the core issue is hard to deny
• The FiA is deviating from it's usual policy of not allowing political demonstrations - every body can make his own conclusions on that. To me it is obvious.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

What have I said that I cannot prove?

• Abdullah ran Todt's middle east campaign - solid media reports about that
• Todt promoted Abdullah to vice president motor sport of the FiA - just check with FiA web site
• Todt needs Abdullah again for the elections next year - it is irrefutable regardless of wether he wants to make a stand himself or influence the election of his successor
• Abdullah has Todt by the balls - well, it is a bit paraphrasing, but the core issue is hard to deny
• The FiA is deviating from it's usual policy of not allowing political demonstrations - every body can make his own conclusions on that. To me it is obvious.

Like I said WB, I concur with what you are saying.

But the points you just made apply to anyone in office. Obama has CEO's he has to pander too, as does Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron.
This is nothing new.

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

It may not be right, but it happens every day in every part of the world. There is nothing illegal about it.
Unless there is collusion of some sort that is very hard to prove as my original post alluded to.

[zoro_f1]

what does this means

[myurr]

Like I said WB, I concur with what you are saying.

But the points you just made apply to anyone in office. Obama has CEO's he has to pander too, as does Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron.
This is nothing new.

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

It may not be right, but it happens every day in every part of the world. There is nothing illegal about it.
Unless there is collusion of some sort that is very hard to prove as my original post alluded to.

Indeed I agree with WhiteBlue that most of what he says probably is fact, and it's something that I'm not comfortable with.

<snip>

Without further evidence my gut feel is that ... Todt probably wants to keep his allies sweet but equally is being informed that the situation is under control and team personnel are not in danger.

[strad]

Bahrain is more dependent on Bernie than vice versa in my opinion. Formula 1 will find another circuit if needed. I think it's more a matter of pride for Bernie, he might think the same race canceled for consecutive years is not good for his image.

I agree. I also think that the drivers and teams will be safe. Even if they have to kill people to make it so.