Grand Prix chairman Zayed Alzayani – Bahrain where idiocy reigns supreme

F1 teams come under attack from Bahrain
Wednesday, 13 July 2011 00:13

Bahrain Grand Prix chairman Zayed Alzayani has fired a bitter broadside at Formula 1 teams for their attitude towards the eventually-cancelled event.

The race, which was scheduled to be the season-opener this year, was postponed due to civil unrest in the country.

Although the FIA reinstated the Grand Prix, teams opposed the move and the race was eventually cancelled.

Alzayani said if Formula 1 was not going to Bahrain for the violation of human rights, then most grands prix should also be called off.

“They’re going to the US next year,” Alzayani told the Evening Standard, London.

“What about Guantanamo? Isn’t that human rights violation? As Bernie Ecclestone told me, ‘If human rights was the criterion for F1 races, we would only have them in Belgium and Switzerland in the future’.”

He added: “The teams have been very temperamental. I feel disappointed because it cannot go within three months from one end of the spectrum, ‘Oh, you are my favourite destination. We love it here. We feel like we are at home in Bahrain.’ To the other, ‘We don’t want to go to Bahrain.’ Yes, events have happened in between but you can’t be so temperamental.”

Alzayani said Formula 1 boss Ecclestone always pushed for the race to go ahead, but he denied it was about trying not to lose millions of dollars if the event was cancelled.

“It was a unanimous vote of all the 26 World Council members. Bernie voted for it. On the June 8, I met him here in London.”

He said, ‘There is resistance from the teams but if you want I’ll push for it. We’ll get it sorted.’ He even gave us the option of holding it on December 4. This was never about Bernie losing money by not having a race in Bahrain.”

Alzayani claimed that the main reason why Bahrain decided to pull its race off in the end was because of a lack of ambulances in the country and says that was why the GP2 Asia series race too was cancelled.

He said: “We have to have a minimum of 18 ambulances to run a race and, because of the riots and people getting injured, all the ambulances were diverted to attend to the protests. So we couldn’t run the race.”

Bahrain is scheduled to return to the F1 calendar next year, having been given the season-opening slot again. …source