» Brawn slams ‘unacceptable’ December races

Mercedes GP boss has described the suggestion of staging Grands Prix in December – should the FIA World Motor Sport Council agree to extend the F1 calendar into December to accommodate a rescheduling of the Bahrain Grand Prix – as “totally unacceptable”.

With there being continued pressure from Bahraini authorities to reschedule its cancelled race with it being due to lift its state of emergency in a few days’ time, F1 figures are unhappy that F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is even entertaining the idea of staging a race there.

And there are pressures elsewhere against a move to return to Bahrain, with the New York-based Human Rights Watch group writing to the FIA and the F1 teams and urging them to “seriously consider the appropriateness of holding [the Grand Prix this year] in Bahrain in light of the scale of human rights violations there”.

And despite whatever concerns Brawn may have about the political situation in Bahrain – although he did add that “we have the right to speak our minds” – his concern stems immediately from a logistical perspective.

“Our guys have been working since January, we don’t have test teams anymore, so the same guys have been working since January and we are asking them to work into December and that means there is no time for a holiday before Christmas and that would mean getting straight back in to it in January,” he said.

“So personally I think it is unacceptable and we’ve told Bernie that and he knows our opinion. If we continue to take those sort of approaches then we will run into problems because our people cannot be expected to work in that environment and situation, so I think it is totally unacceptable.”

The deadline for the FIA to make a decision on rescheduling the Bahrain Grand Prix is Friday 3 June. If it is rescheduled, then the Indian Grand Prix will be moved from its original slot and rescheduled to a December 11 finale.