A team from the Porsche Supercup, a supporting series during the upcoming Grand Prix of Bahrain this weekend has cancelled its participation in the race, outing its doubts about the safety at the middle-east country.
Great! I'm sure that would provide wider legitimacy to the event.manchild wrote:http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98991 wrote:
Ecclestone unmoved by safety concerns in Bahrain as Force India pulls out of practice
By Jonathan Noble Friday, April 20th 2012, 11:37 GMT
.."What we really need is an earthquake or something like that, so you can write about that now...."
You posted this and it was followed up by Mclaren777 posting some photo's. The implication being that this was unusual.WhiteBlue wrote:The grandstand is completely empty. The teams may be alone at the circuit with the media.
Actually I can see nothing clearly in these pictures. And the question isn't that important anyway as Friday is probably the lowest day of spectating like on all other circuits. For a benchmark how things turn out we can watch the grandstand during the next days.myurr wrote:That last one is from free practice on Friday in 2009 and clearly shows the grandstand is empty.
I can clearly see that the stands are empty, or that everyone is a color coordinated squareish shaped seat back.WhiteBlue wrote:Actually I can see nothing clearly in these pictures. And the question isn't that important anyway as Friday is probably the lowest day of spectating like on all other circuits. For a benchmark how things turn out we can watch the grandstand during the next days.myurr wrote:That last one is from free practice on Friday in 2009 and clearly shows the grandstand is empty.
I reckon we will not see a lot of VIPs at this race as we usually had in the past. People like Eric Clapton who seldom missed this race.
Another interesting point that seems to have been forgotten is that when the Falkland War broke out, the 1982 Grand Prix of Argentina was canceled because Bernie had fears of being taken hostage.WhiteBlue wrote:I'm not so sure. Let us have a look at history to see when races have been called off.SeijaKessen wrote:I think unfortunately this race is going to occur. We're less than 48 hours from qualifying...I can't imagine it being stopped at this point.
From a biography of Ecclestone by Terry Lovell.
So one thing is if public opinion stops the money flow from TV by refusing to broadcast the race.Apparently, ignoring the political pressures and flak that was coming from all sides, Ecclestone continued to insist the South African Grand Prix was on – until, that is, several international television networks, facing internal pressure from unions, announced they would not be broadcasting the race. It was only then, when the race was faced with the loss of all-important television coverage, that Ecclestone announced the Grand Prix would not take place. The power of television succeeded, it seemed, where all other efforts had failed.
The other example was Bahrain 2011. That race was called off by the Al-Khalifas themselves because they feared that the international public could witness the bloody suppression of the peaceful Pearl revolution when 1000 tanks, murder, torture and bloodshed would have been exposed to the cameras of the international TV reporters.
It is quite clear that only a hand full of politically aware fans care what happened in Bahrain in the last fourteen months. So the South African mechanism via a TV broadcasting boycott will not happen.
The conclusion is that only an embarrassing incident closing in on the F1 TV cameras will cause the other mechanism to work. If the royals are forced to surround the BIC with troops and tanks that will be attacked by thousands of Molotov cocktail throwing Bahrainis they will pull the plug. That is not what they want us to see. Equally if the track gets invaded on Saturday or Sunday by demonstrators then Charly will have no alternative but stop the race.
So we see it is now practically an internal Bahrain affair to determine if the race will run or not. I wonder how long it will take for someone to take bets what will happen.
You made a big deal out of the fact that the stands were empty, and now that I've shown it's not a historically significant event you say it's not important. Doesn't that mean your original posting highlighting the empty stands was then just propaganda, something you have criticised others for?WhiteBlue wrote:Actually I can see nothing clearly in these pictures. And the question isn't that important anyway as Friday is probably the lowest day of spectating like on all other circuits. For a benchmark how things turn out we can watch the grandstand during the next days.myurr wrote:That last one is from free practice on Friday in 2009 and clearly shows the grandstand is empty.
I reckon we will not see a lot of VIPs at this race as we usually had in the past. People like Eric Clapton who seldom missed this race.
Do you not think a war where the aggressor country is the host country of a GP and the teams and Bernie come from the other country involved in that war, that the circumstances are just a tinsy bit different to Bahrain? I've yet to see a photo of even a thousand protestors at the Bahrain GP, let alone hundreds of thousands, and from the reports we've read so far there have been a couple of small demonstrations with a couple of petrol bombs. It's not exactly a major uprising at the moment where security or safety of the teams appears to be at stake.SeijaKessen wrote:Another interesting point that seems to have been forgotten is that when the Falkland War broke out, the 1982 Grand Prix of Argentina was canceled because Bernie had fears of being taken hostage.
Which kind of goes to my whole point that Bernie only cares about his own safety.
I didn't make a big deal out of the empty grandstands. Actually I made a very brief comment about it in the free practise comments that I posted. It would not even have gone into this thread if the mods had not shifted it over. I'm not in the mood to bicker with you.myurr wrote:You made a big deal out of the fact that the stands were empty, and now that I've shown it's not a historically significant event you say it's not important. Doesn't that mean your original posting highlighting the empty stands was then just propaganda, something you have criticised others for?
myurr wrote:Do you not think a war where the aggressor country is the host country of a GP and the teams and Bernie come from the other country involved in that war, that the circumstances are just a tinsy bit different to Bahrain? I've yet to see a photo of even a thousand protestors at the Bahrain GP, let alone hundreds of thousands, and from the reports we've read so far there have been a couple of small demonstrations with a couple of petrol bombs. It's not exactly a major uprising at the moment where security or safety of the teams appears to be at stake.SeijaKessen wrote:Another interesting point that seems to have been forgotten is that when the Falkland War broke out, the 1982 Grand Prix of Argentina was canceled because Bernie had fears of being taken hostage.
Which kind of goes to my whole point that Bernie only cares about his own safety.
