Ecclestone is concerned about the protests in Bahrain

The two popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt could spark other popular uprisings in the Gulf countries. Protests have already been suppressed in Bahrain, which could jeopardize the Grand Prix Formula 1 event scheduled to take place in less than a month.

Thus Bernie Ecclestone stated to the Daily Telegraph that he was unable to get in touch with Crown Prince Salman ibn Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa: «He is a bit busy, as you can imagine. So I don’t know exactly what’s going on. The danger is obvious, isn’t it? If some people wanted to make noise and gain global recognition, it would be easy, wouldn’t it? You start causing a problem on the starting grid in Bahrain and you have global coverage.»

The current tensions were triggered by the death of two protesters caused by riot police. Monday’s demonstrations were thus called “Day of Rage,” and the protests took over social media (as was the case in Tunisia and, to a lesser extent, in Egypt) to call for anti-government demonstrations.

However, in the Instability Index published by Time, the regime of Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa was one of the least threatened as the standard of living is high and the government is not plagued by corruption. Nevertheless, Bahrain suffers from significant economic issues due to its dwindling oil reserves. Therefore, it is not able to benefit from oil revenues to ensure the country’s economic development. Following Dubai’s example, Bahrain has undertaken to become a tourist destination, notably by hosting a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Currently, the holding of the first round of the world championship is not threatened: The crown prince is a very realistic person. I have never had a problem in the past in Bahrain and I am happy to walk in the city. But we don’t know now. The world changes. As I say, I will speak with the crown prince later. We are closely monitoring the events. We will trust what they think is the right thing to do.

The teams must arrive in the country for private tests in the week preceding the Grand Prix, between March 3rd and 6th. By then, the situation has time to evolve in either direction and it’s certain that the decision on whether the event will be held or not will be made as late as possible in order not to compromise the economic and sporting interests at stake.

With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr