King Hamad and Eccelstone drags F1 teams into abyss of immorality

Bahrain Grand Prix organisers launch ‘PR offensive’ as poll says ‘race is not right’
By Tom Cary – 28 March 2012 – UK Telegraph

Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, Williams co-founder and team principal Frank Williams, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and Mercedes GP chief executive Nick Fry were all present as Bahrain race organisers hosted a lunch for “friends and colleagues” at the Royal Automobile Club on London’s Pall Mall.

But the scale of the PR battle they face to convince the sport – let alone the political and human rights groups opposed to the race – that returning to the kingdom after last year’s bloodshed is the right thing to do, is illustrated by the results of a survey carried out by F1 Racing magazine.

About 60 per cent of nearly 10,000 international fans polled said it was “not right” for the grand prix to go ahead this year. Only 24 per cent said it was right. The full results of the survey will be published in the April issue of the magazine, which goes on sale on Thursday.

The results will come as no great surprise to organisers of the race who have been battling the negative perception of their country ever since a brutal crackdown on civil unrest last spring left at least 35 dead and many more injured.

In his welcome speech on Wednesday — which he jokingly described as a “PR offensive” — circuit chairman Zayed R Alzayani said the perception was skewed. He described the race as a “national event for all the people of Bahrain, regardless of creed or colour”, and claimed it was worth half a billion dollars to the economy. …more