“If there are problems, they … must be able to escalate their response,” he
said. “You saw what happened in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race over the
weekend. That man is lucky to get away with his life.
“Anyone who invades the circuit is putting themselves in danger, putting the
drivers in danger, putting potentially other spectators in danger.
“That will be clamped down on and properly so.” Formula One’s governing body,
the FIA, remained silent last night as the speculation raged but some teams,
having toed the line for months, began to crack.
“I don’t think anybody’s keen,” one senior team official admitted to The Daily
Telegraph. “No one wants to travel to a country where one is not wholly
welcome.”
However, he stressed that with the Foreign Office still not placing any
restrictions on travel to Bahrain, there are no insurance issues as there
were last year when the race was postponed and then cancelled.
He also revealed that many teams have sent out staff ahead of the race to
report back on the situation there, with one recent report by Lotus finding
that day-to-day life is “pretty normal”.
While nothing formal has yet been organised there will undoubtedly be talks in
the Shanghai paddock later this week. “I know we keep saying it but we
really are in the hands of the FIA, the commercial rights holder and race
organisers here to make the right decision,” the source added.
“And of course they must be made for the right reasons; commercial and
political factors must not be allowed to compromise anyone’s safety.”
The FIA president, Jean Todt, is expected to be in China.