The Chairman of the Bahrain Grand Prix has hit out at the teams for not wanting to travel to Bahrain for the 2011 event, and has even declared his country’s race is bigger than several major British sporting events rolled into one, including the British GP.
Zayed Alzayani attended the ‘new look’ Silverstone last weekend to witness the British GP first hand. He came away with some praise for the new facilities, but criticised the event for its lack of nationwide interest.
“At Silverstone you feel the race only on the track,” he told the London Evening Standard. “You don’t see anything at the airport, maybe a small banner, nothing in London. You come to Oxford Street, nobody knows the grand prix is on. If this was the race weekend in Bahrain, you would see posters and fliers and advertisements in every shopping mall, in every corner of the town. To us, the grand prix is definitely the biggest event of the year.
“We anticipate it all year long, it puts Bahrain on the map, transforms the nation and changes the mood of the people. It is bigger than your Silverstone, the FA Cup, the Derby, the Grand National all rolled into one.”
What Alzayani fails to notice is that the British GP attracted a sell-out crowd of 122,000 fans on Sunday alone, a figure that his event could only dream of, which of course means the organisers, the BRDC, don’t need to spend millions putting up banners in airports to advertise the event, wheras the Bahrain GP, which attracts just over 36,000 fans, does.
Alzayani continued, hiting out at the teams and particularly Mark Webber, one of a handful of drivers to voice their opinions about the human rights’ violations in the country at the time.
“They have been very temperamental,” he said about the teams. “I feel disappointed because it cannot go within three months from one end of the spectrum, ‘Oh, you are my favourite destination. We love it here. We feel like we are at home in Bahrain.’ To the other, ‘We don’t want to go to Bahrain.’ Yes, events have happened in between but you can’t be so temperamental.
“There were a lot of complaints from the teams and sponsors and, at the end of the day, we withdrew. We didn’t want to stir up a fight with the teams.”
His criticism of Webber focused on the Australian’s outspoken comments and his push for the teams not to attend.
“He [Webber] talked about human rights and all that. Doesn’t Australia have issues with the Aborigines? I don’t see Mark Webber talking about that. Why Mark Webber went against Bahrain I don’t know.
“He’s raced in Bahrain many times and he’s always loved it. We’ve never had any criticism in the previous seven grands prix. We’ve always been getting high marks for our organisation, everyone involved at F1 loves it.”
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