Teams to follow Ecclestone on Bahrain decision

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In today’s round-up: Teams to follow Ecclestone on Bahrain decision – once he decides.

Meanwhile testing continues at Barcelona. See the daily testing post for more details.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone ‘hopeful’ over Bahrain GP (BBC)

“Probably today if we had to make the decision on the information I’ve got, we wouldn’t do that. But anyway it seems as if – they say – it’s quiet, no big problems. Now, they’re there. I don’t know if I was there or you were there we’d say there are problems, I’ve no idea. But that’s what our people said. I’m more hopeful today than I was yesterday.”

Later, after further reports of violence in Bahrain, Ecclestone changed his mind:

Ecclestone still monitoring Bahrain unrest (RTE Sport)

“Two of my guys were there and they said they were looking out of their hotel window and that they saw a group of people supporting the king, with nobody causing any trouble. They said that all was quiet, that one of the main roads that was closed was now open again, and that was more or less it. They did say they would have to wait until later on today because of the funerals taking place, and that they did not know what the position would be until after that. So when I made my earlier statement it was based on the information I had at that time, as opposed to what is happening.”

Teams will follow FIA, FOM on Bahrain (Autosport)

“One is linked to the other; they are only a week apart. It wouldn’t make sense to go and test there if the race wasn’t to happen. We will wait for feedback from FOM and the FIA and make a decision accordingly. We are looking at some alternatives because we don’t know whether we can go to Bahrain.”

Anthony Davidson on Twitter

“Off to see the guys at Codemasters today to see the latest developments on the F1 2011 video game! Focusing on the new handling model.”

Via the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

A positive note going into the new season (Ferrari)

Stefano Domenicali: “The floatation on the stock exchange of Williams, a team which has played a key role in the history of Formula 1, demonstrates the vitality of our sport. At a time when the world economy is still going through a very delicate phase, especially in Europe, it is positive to see new methods being used to try and assure the future of the independent teams, in such a way that they have the means to compete at the highest level in the top category of motor sport in the world.”

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

Vitantonio Liuzzi at HRT: good or bad for his career? Here’s BasCB:

Looks like Liuzzi is looking forward to it. At least he will know, how the team operates and he will have seen something from Narain driving.

But without even having seen the new car, I guess it is hard to say whether this is a good road for Liuzzi. Going with a team with very little ressources and experience, no factory and no solid development team, what will it do for his career?

And how much cash will he have to bring to the table?
BasCB

From the forum

What other race series are you following this year?

Happy birthday!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

On this day last year details emerged of major change at new entrant Campos Meta.

Adrian Campos’s entry was taken over by Jose Ramon Carabante who put Colin Kolles in charge of running the team.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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57 comments on “Teams to follow Ecclestone on Bahrain decision”

  1. Yes Anthony, work on perfecting that game!!!

    1. New Handling model? So CM have fixed the fake qualifying and the pitting issues and the puncture rates? Good work fellas…

      And the Grand Prix is definitely on – Bernie says his people have said its quiet and nothing is going on. I’m sure some sheik threatened to take his cash home with if if the race doesn’t go ahead.

      Yay for Ferrari being positive, though it does seem VERY strange indeed.

      1. They *had* a handling model?

    2. I’ll be damned, they must be rewriting it from the ground up!

      Or maybe just removing the word ‘realistic’ from every aspect of the PR – which could take a while.

      Either way, lets hope AD actually gives it a go this time rather than just blindly endorse it for a nice fat pay cheque.

      I’ve got a lot of respect for AD – but not when it comes to games…

  2. Yes! Positive Ferrari!! I like it :D

    1. I’m suspicious. Who are they and what have they done with the real Ferrari?

      1. They must have been abducted by aliens, who’ve now taken control of their bodies.

        1. They probably bought shares in Williams! :D

          1. ^This for COTD

          2. Second this for COTD!

            This is the Ferrari I could like, a nice one.

      2. Monti is off to the Italy Olympics bid?

    2. This is Domenicalli saying this: he is a lot more level headed than LdM, mouthpiece to Ferrari and politician extrodinarre (he hopes)

      1. Yeah Domenicalli always strikes me as a decent guy. Y’know, I suspect the root of all Ferrari’s problems lie with Mad Monty. Once he’s gone I bet we’ll all grow to love them!

        1. The irony of all this is that Monty was held up as a paragon of Formula 1 during the Mosley Years. It’s fairly obvious now that he was only ever the lesser of two evils.

        2. well yeah… depends where he goes doesn’t it? If it turns out Silvio has just been keeping LDM’s seat warm… who know’s what gonna happen. However, *touch wood*, it can only get better.

          1. Silvio’s been keeping more than Luca’s seat warm…

  3. I wish they’d just hurry up and cancel the race now that the British government has recommended all non-essential travel to Bahrain to be avoided. Seems inevitable.

    1. eh, don’t know about that, FOM will be exploring every possible route, they simply don’t care about the political aspect.

      Still it’s does seem likley to fold now.

      1. With the government warnings this has far surpassed a political issue and has undeniably become a safety issue.

    2. Not only the British Government. US Government have also issued a travel advisory to avoid all non-essential travel to Bahrain. This advisory is set right now to expire March 18th. I understand the French government issued similar advisory as well. As I understand this leaves the teams and media employers in a legal conundrum, insurance reasons is one.

      Unless they do a Egypt and decided to fold to the protesters quickly there is NO possible way things going to be calm enough to be safe in time.

      1. Hadn’t even thought of the insurance and other legal implications, but you’re right, that alone will probably prevent it taking place. Bernie should just hurry up and announce it and focus on finding a location to move the final test to. And since the start of the season will be postponed, and with a big gap now from the test to Australia, why not add a 5th winter test somewhere else in Europe to give the teams a chance to gather some more data since they’ll be missing all the race data from Bahrain?

  4. Weal in response to BacCB’s COTD seems like this is Luizzi raging against the dying of the light. His F1 career has failed, signing on for small teams is a step backwards for someone who isn’t going to make it in the sport. Unless HRT do a Brawn an they don’t seem to have lost half a billion quid down Kolles massive sofa so it’s unlikley.

    He was a fantastic karter apparently, there are some very prestigous series about where aero grip ins’t half as important as F1. What about DTM for instance? Surley if his skill in karts is as prestigous as his pre f1 form suggested he could be out somewhere winning things? Probably doesn’t need much for money, so why not deliver on his potential in a series that suits his natural skill set.

    1. I reckon he could make a good go of it in IndyCar. I mean the series is looking for more american talent, but Liuzzi can add to the roster of talent in the series.

      1. I suppose, to continue the analogy from my comment below, if he went to IndyCar’s he’d be a medium sized fish in a medium sized pond… it’d be interesting to compare him to the current front runners from that series too

    2. I suppose it all depends on the question: would you rather be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond? I think I’d prefer the latter

      1. The only down side is the big ones tend to eat you.

  5. Re COTD :

    Hopefully the wheels wont fall off! ;)

  6. Keith, now that I have no trouble loading the Forum anymore, I’ve started having the problem I was having over there here on the main site now. Occasionally when I load a page, it loads the header, the grey box (where the ads go), and that’s all, then it gets stuck in a loop trying to access different ad servers or something.

    1. I have the same trouble, but I didn’t look in to it.

  7. dont know if its just me but…..

    The home page hasn’t updated since some time yesterday, yet there are new articles (once i click on an old one) in the list on the right hand side. I can access them from there but they have not appeared on the home page.

    If at all relevant i use google chrome.

  8. I`ve just set up a facebook page calling for boycott if the race is to go ahead ! Please join in via the link ! Thanks guys

  9. Given Mr. Ecclestone’s experience and political and financial connections, it’s remarkable that he seems to be the only person in the world who doesn’t know what’s happening in Bahrain.

    1. Yeah, you haven’t been reading anything, have you? Articles on the Autosport homepage make it quite clear that Ecclestone knows exactly what is happening, and he’s no doubt being given hourly updates.

      1. I was referring (sarcastically) to his carefully-chosen weasel words. He managed to say something negative about the situation, while sliding in:

        “…saw a group of people supporting the king, with nobody causing any trouble… all was quiet…that was more or less it”

        He’s most definitely not an idiot, and he certainly does know exactly what’s happening – and he’s carefully wording everything to put the maximum positive spin on it while giving himself an out should it become politically untenable for him to force the race to go on.

        He’s very carefully tiptoeing around the edges, poking a stick into every shrub, and figuring out just how far he can push it. That’s fine if you’re a racing team bending the rules, or a businessman playing his competitors off one another (to a limit) – but when you’re pulling that kind of crap in a situation like this, it just makes you a slimeball. He’s not doing this so he can make the right decision for the sport or the teams’ safety – he’s doing it to wring every cent he can out of the situation without bad PR making it obvious what a jackal he is.

        1. Yeah, you haven’t been reading anything, have you?

          Less of the aggressive tone young man, he was just being sarcastic.

          Anyway, you thought the protest was a national holiday, bless.

  10. It wouldn’t make sense to go and test there if the race wasn’t to happen.

    Even if the situation rapidly deteriorated between the two events?

    1. Scratch that, I see what was meant

  11. Paul Richardson
    19th February 2011, 9:50

    Curious, Bernie says 2 of “my guys” are there… So who exactly are Bernies Guys, and why are they in Bahrain? Anyway, as for theteams taking the lead from Shepard Ecclestone, well, Baa Baaa Baaaaahrain, shall we shan’t we, what do you say wise old sage?
    The grasping little man won’t shut shop if he can squeeze an extra penny out of it even in the midst of a riot. Its time the team owners and employeers grew some testes and told Bernie to stick it. Formula 1 is a sport, but Bernie and Max managed to turn it into a fortune making enterprise for personal gain, to the detriment of the sport. Who allowed him to have sole rights to Motor racing at its peak world-wide. No wonder he sympathises with dictators.

    1. Sound to me like they are probably servants to the royal household…

    2. Apparently Bernie’s two guys were part of the GP2 crew who looked out the window and saw all was quiet.

      1. Had to be carefull to look to the right side though!

    1. Just a warning chaps, the video above, is at least one unprovoked murder by the police using machine guns from about 100 +/- meters away.. and a number of injuries.

      You have been warned.

    2. Oh my God… seeing this clip makes me dislike Bernie Ecclestone so intensely for his attitude

      1. Shocking clip, the pleas from the Bahrain people on Youtube makes you realise what a living hell it must be for the people out there, poor poor people, makes me sick to think that oil and money is preventing USA and UK governments from even speaking, let alon doing anything about this disgrace,i can’t believe the GP is even still being considered

    3. Well posted Deurmat and to think people are still considering that the race should go ahead. Surely this graphic example of unmitigated violence of state against its people will change that…

      1. Just a warning chaps, the video above, is at least one unprovoked murder by the police using machine guns from about 100 +/- meters away.. and a number of injuries.

        Thanks for the warning, I still watched it and I’m sick to my stomach, poor guy

        I think we have a couple of Bahrani users here, I think LAK is one right?

        It’d be nice to get there view, I know its selfish of me to ask with all this trouble but I like an insider perspective, is Bahrain that bad in terms of leadership and regime?

        While I abhor the violence I’m sorry to say I’m ignorant to it, I really don’t know how the people feel about the current leadership, is it a minority or are they really oppressed?

        I know I’m coming across as stupid with the above video shown but up until this happened I was under the assumption that the majority of Bahrain were happy with the govermental situation.

        Please feel free to correct me.

        I’m totally shocked, firing on your own people.

        1. Agree.

          As most western governments have by now advised to travel to Bahrain only if needed, the GP should certainly be called off.

          No one would arue a motor race is essential travel, would they?

          1. I think it would be totally insensitive of F1 to just swan in and have a motor race (which really, in the grand scheme of things isn’t that important, fanatics aside) when these people are literally fighting for their lives. Apart from anything else. it would just make a mockery of their struggles. Just make the call Bernie & cancel it.

    4. If anyone needed clarification on the situation in Bahrain, I think that clip provided it.

      Only an idiot would send F1 into Bahrain right now. Too bad we’re talking about Bernie here …

    1. Did Schuey have those dragons last year? I certainly can’t remember them, I wonder what the significance is.

      Brit’s is more or less unchanged, not that there’s anything wrong with that, still one good looking design. The Hulk’s seems a little bit cleaned up from last year.

      …………….

      in the same link there’s another album for the Ferrari drivers.

      Alfonso’s is looking very sleek indeed, Fisi’s looks awesome.

    2. You have a thing for helmets don’t you?

    3. The helmets look a lot sleeker and better composition.

  12. Great, a COTD. Now I heard some guy named Giorgio Mondini will be testing with HRT in the afternoon.
    Was apparently third driver for Midland in 2006 after going to 26th in the GP2 2005 season. And he drove an Audi at Le Mans just like Narain.

    Seems Kolles is really going for the old telephone list of drivers to get the car full at the tests. So maybe another chance for Markus Winkelhock, he did lead a GP race after all :-D

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