Emergency meeting planned regarding Bahrain Grand Prix

With the Bahrain Grand Prix only two weeks away, further unrest within the Kingdom has resulted in a shadow of uncertainty as to whether the 2012 race will go ahead. After last year’s race was initially postponed then canceled, it looks highly likely that the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix will also be canceled.

In an interview with The Guardian, an unnamed Team Principal has spoken out about how the teams’ of the Formula 1 World Championship are now hoping the event is called off, even though F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone continues to back the event.

With protests within the Kingdom now directly against the running of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the unnamed Team Principal has explained that the event cannot go ahead unless a military lock-down is created, which would do nothing to solve the rising violence around the Sakhir International Circuit, or indeed the entire nation.

“I feel very uncomfortable about going to Bahrain,” the unnamed Team Principal said in an interview with The Guardian, “If I’m brutally frank, the only way they can pull this race off without incident is to have a complete military lock-down there. And I think that would be unacceptable, both for Formula 1 and for Bahrain. We’re all hoping the FIA calls it off. From a purely legal point of view, in terms of insurance and government advice, we are clear to go. But what we find worrying is that there are issues happening every day.”

These ongoing issues took a serious turn for the worse a couple of weeks ago, when a protester was killed no less than 20 kilometers from the Sakhir International Circuit, where the still scheduled Bahrain Grand Prix is supposed to take place.

With these events now directly posing a threat to the safety of the F1 fraternity, it is believed the teams’ will hold an emergency meeting regarding the race this weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix. This meeting could well decide whether the teams’ wish to risk traveling to Bahrain, and whether they will boycott the event.

With the violence unyielding within the Kingdom of Bahrain, common sense must surely prevail in the outcome of the race once again being canceled.

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