We said it one and we’ll say it again, the Bahrain Formula One saga isn’t going away anytime soon, not even after the race was recently reinstated into the calendar for 2011. Now the FIA have gone and done an about turn, saying Formula One won’t be returning to Bahrain after a report was leaked, showing how the board gave in.
The decision to reinstate the Bahrain GP was a unanimous one after FIA Commissioner Carlos Gracia took a government-sponsored tour of Bahrain. On his return, his report described an ‘atmosphere of total calm and stability,’ ‘life is back to normal’ and that ‘no human rights were violated’ in the brutal and bloody protests by the people against the dictator.
However, that report couldn’t fool Bernie Eccelstone, the real top dog in Formula One, and he promptly declared that the race was off. Eccelstone’s reasoning is that the FIA’s decision was against protocol as bylaws dictate that any race rescheduling needs to have the approval of teams. As expected too, 11 of the 12 teams on the grid have told Eccelstone that the object to the race in Bahrain.
With all this happening now, the FIA’s credibility is definitely in question and the only way to possibly save what little honor they have would be to move the India GP to 30 October.
The full report from Gracia is available below. It reads like a primary school student trying to etch out an official report. We’re no real experts on the matter but we’re pretty sure that anybody can right through the pretty words used in it.
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Source: Jalopnik
