We reported earlier that former FIA President Max Mosley pointed out that the Formula 1 International Sporting Code prohibited any amendments to the F1 calendar without the unanimous agreement of all of the teams, a consensus that Ecclestone has now realised he was never going to achieve with many teams declaring their opposition to the event even going ahead.
“The schedule cannot be rescheduled without the agreement of the participants – they’re the facts,” he conceded to the BBC.
“Hopefully there’ll be peace and quiet and we can return in the future, but of course [the Grand Prix is] not on.”
The end result is an almighty egg on the face of the FIA, which will receive another round of criticism for having flip-flopped on the issue so dramatically.
Ultimately, the next steps will be to go about quietly removing the race from the 2011 calendar without the FIA losing too much in the dignity stakes.
The valiant – and frankly, futile – defence by FIA President Jean Todt of the FIA’s decision-making process to reinstate the Bahrain Grand Prix won’t help the Frenchman’s credibility. However, it would not be surprising to see the FIA Vice-President Carlos Gracia being the fall guy in the entire affair, for it was he who tabled the fact-finding report declaring all was going swimmingly in Bahrain when there was very clear evidence to suggest otherwise.
[Image via The Cahier Archive]
Richard Bailey
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