Former F1 Chief Max Mosley Speaks Out Against Bahrain Race
F1’s former chief commandant Max Mosley has joined Red Bull pilot Mark Webber in speaking up against the FIA’s decision to race in Bahrain this October, claiming that it is a mistake that “will eventually cost Formula One dear.”
“By agreeing to race there, Formula One becomes complicit in what has happened,” said Mosley in a column for the Sunday Telegraph.
“We will be told that holding the Grand Prix in October will show that, once again, Bahrain is a happy, peaceful country. So why is it wrong for Formula One to go along with this? Surely the line has to be drawn when a sporting event is not mere entertainment in a less-than-perfect country, but is being used by an oppressive regime to camouflage its actions.”
Of course, Mosley may have more clout than a mere racing driver—”hey, we don’t pay you to think!” seems to be the operative phrase with all the other domestic appliances. But for the son of one of Britain’s most infamous fascists, Mosley writes an impassioned opinion about the influence F1 would have on a country still facing its own charges of bloody oppression. “If a sport accepts this role, it becomes a tool of government,” he writes. “If Formula One allows itself to be used in this way in Bahrain, it will share the regime’s guilt as surely as if it went out and helped brutalise unarmed protesters.”
[Source: Times of India]
More by Blake Z. Rong
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Right on Max! Looks like you do have soul after all.