Question marks over Bahrain Grand Prix re-scheduling, decision to be made before March 13
The FIA faces a tough call over re-scheduling the Bahrain Grand Prix in an already congested calendar later this year. The Kingdom was scheduled to kick-start the 2011 Formula One season, but was called off due to the recent unrest.
There has been speculation over a possible rescheduling of the season-opener and it appears that the commercial supremo Mr. Bernie Ecclestone has finally taken notice of the dilemma that precedes him.
Ecclestone believes that perhaps it will be sensible to reschedule the race in the summer. He commented, “The FIA world council will meet at the beginning of March and could look into the situation. I have already spoken with FIA president Jean Todt about
the possibility of finding a new date and we both agreed that a decision has to be made before the season starts.”
When inquired about shifting to Europe as the most ‘convenient’ option, the chairman responded that there was no need to use Europe as an escape plan; what mattered to him was ‘safely’ organizing a race in Bahrain. Resting his faith in the Crown Prince,
Ecclestone added that if the former believed that Bahrain is able to host an F1 race, he would comply in the future and added that despite the scorching heat in the summer, teams would be willing to come to the Middle-East; in recognition of their support
for the country.
While it appears that the sport might have to contend with life without Bahrain, its re-inclusion in the calendar would result in a record 20 race-season in the motorsport’s six decade history.
Touching upon his expectations for the upcoming season, Ecclestone felt that Michael Schumacher had a realistic chance of claiming the top step of the podium if given a competitive car. Sebastian Vettel wasn’t too far off in his books either. The Commercial
supremo believed that the youngster had all the makings of a potential Ferrari driver in the future. Presently, however, he merits a preferential top spot with Red Bull despite Mark Webber’s experience.
Ecclestone proposed that in order to make the sport more exciting would be to soak the tracks!
“We always had the most exciting races in the wet so let’s think of making rain. There are race tracks that you can make artificially wet and it would be easy to have such systems at a number of tracks. Why not let it ‘rain’ in the middle of a race?” he
said.
Perhaps ending the debate surrounding the future of F1 in the barren Middle-East with ‘artificial rain’ seems a touch ironic and tactless on part of Ecclestone.
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