Damon Hill urges FIA to rethink commitment to Bahrain GP

Apr.5 (PVM) In what will be seen as a blow to the Bahrain Grand Prix organisers, Damon Hill has back tracked on an earlier endorsement of the race at Sakhir and is now urging the FIA to reconsider holding the race as he claims that 'things are different now.'

[caption id="attachment_100059" align="alignright" width="340" caption="Damon Hill with ex-F1 world champions during the 2010 Bahrain GP weekend"][/caption]

After last year’s race was cancelled, the 1996 world champion travelled to Bahrain with FIA president Jean Todt and afterwards said that he supports the decision to give the Sakhir circuit its April 22 date for 2012. He declared in February this year:"Everyone wants things to move in the right direction in Bahrain. The grand prix is of huge economic importance to Bahrain. You’d almost be putting an economic sanction on Bahrain by pulling the race."

Yesterday Hill, told the Telegraph: "Things are different now. The protests have not abated and may even have become more determined and calculated. It is a worrying state of affairs. What we must put above all else is what will be the penalty in terms of human cost if the race goes ahead."

"It would be a bad state of affairs, and bad for F1, to be seen to be enforcing martial law in order to hold the race. That is not what this sport should be about. Looking at it today you’d have to say that [the race] could be creating more problems than it’s solving."

"The view I gave after returning from the visit last year was based on my understanding of several factors; the substantial economic significance of the GP for Bahrain; that the report on the April riots condemned the actions of the police and security forces, and that both sides were to take part in meaningful dialogue to resolve the problems peacefully. Under those conditions one could imagine the GP being a great fillip for a Bahrain on the road to recovery."

[caption id="attachment_95069" align="alignright" width="340" caption="Fans at the 2010 race"][/caption]

"However, with under three weeks to go, conditions do not seem to have improved, judging by the reports in our European newspapers, social media and on Al Jazeera TV. The recent meeting to garner support for the race as a unifying event was troubling insofar as it tried to represent the rioting in Bahrain as the result of bad press reporting and as a ’youth’ issue. Promoting the race as ’Uniting Bahrain’, whilst a laudable ambition, might be elevating F1 beyond even its own prodigious powers."

"I’m just saying we have to tread carefully. I hope the FIA are considering the implications of this fully and that events in Bahrain are not seen as they are often sold, as a bunch of yobs throwing Molotov cocktails, because that’s a gross simplification. If they believe that, they ought be more wary. You don’t get 100,000 people risking their lives in protest for nothing."

"If we go, we all go. But there is obviously still a great deal of pain, anger and tension in Bahrain. It would be better for F1 to make it clear that it properly understands this, and that it wants only the best for all Bahrain, or whatever country it visits. I think F1 is sailing very close to this limit. But there is an even more troubling thought, which is this: is F1 playing brinkmanship for purely financial reasons while people are putting their lives in peril to protest against this event?"

Bahrain International Circuit chairman Zayed Al Zayani said recently, "You can't turn history around, what happened, happenen, but you can learn from it, move on, and the government acknowledged that. Nobody is saying 'No, nothing wrong happened'. We all lived it, but what we are saying now is that what happened is not happening today, and it's time to move on."

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is adamant the race will take place as planned, "Of course the race is going to happen. No worries at all. What I don't understand are the negative statements being made, people catching them and continuing them. They're saying things they don't understand. People say to me 'There's not going to be a race.' And I say 'Well how do you know?' And they tell me they saw or read something, but it's all nonsense.

This year's Bahrain GP is being billed as: "UniF1ed: One Nation in Celebration."