Will the Bahrain Grand Prix go ahead in 2012?

Sports have always tended to keep itself out of the muddy politics of the world yet there have been many occasions in history where it has suffered due to the political tensions of the time.

Formula 1 has found itself in one such dilemma over the issue of holding the Bahrain Grand Prix. Middle East has been a hot spot of political uprising for the past one year. 2011 saw Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Libya under a massive cloud of political unrest and rioting against the authorities. The snowball effect took over Bahrain in 2011 as well and caused a furore before the season opening Grand Prix as human rights agencies raised concerns and requested a boycott.

At first Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone took notice of all the media attention the country was getting over the tensions and decided to postpone the race. A commission was designed to visit the country and analyse the situation.

The commission visited the country and came back with a positive feedback and gave a go ahead for the race to be held. When it was announced that the Bahrain GP will be held, journalists and local human rights agencies caused a furore of how Formula 1 should not give support to an unjust regime by touring the country.

There were some concerns raised by teams and drivers as well, the Aussie driver Mark Webber was the first one to publicly speak against going to Bahrain. It was after a special letter sent to FIA by Bahrain’s local authorities which stated that it would be unsafe at a time like this to hold the event that Ecclestone finally decided to drop the race.

Since 2011, things have settled down considerably and the Bahrain GP is scheduled to be held in April of 2012. The Human Rights Center in Bahrain have raised concerns again and called upon the teams to rethink their visit and boycott the race. They say that if the race takes place it will let the government portray an image of normality when the situation is anything but that.

It is no hidden fact that Ecclestone is in strong favour of holding the race just by the fact that it holds so much financial gain, other than that Bahrain brings in a lot of attention as it is the centre of Formula 1 in the Middle East. This causes a difficult dilemma for the F1 Supremo, but as he mention in one of his candid statements, that if F1 were to assess and analyse all that is going on in the world before holding a Grand Prix event there would not be any Grands Prix races other than Switzerland.

Recently an All Party Group from UK parliament wrote an open letter in the Times magazine in support of holding the Bahrain Grand Prix. The letter raised the positives that can come out of having the race in the country at such a time. It also pointed out how the country has reformed over the little time since the uprising.

The letter will definitely give some leverage to Ecclestone to base his support for holding the event, but only time will tell whether the race will go ahead as planned or face the same result as it did last year. For the sake of the sport and the fans in the country it would be unfortunate if politics once again ruins the excitement and unity the sport can bring out of a nation in turmoil.

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Posted by Kashif Khan on Feb 26 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.