MOTORSPORT
F1 CAN’T AVOID REALITY
Sport and politics don’t mix? That’s impossible, especially in 2022
Damien Smith
F1’s visit to Jeddah comes at an awkward time for Saudi Arabia
Direct from the Bahrain season opener, Formula 1 heads to Jeddah this weekend for the second Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to run in less than four months. Come Sunday, that will be five consecutive races in the Middle East – certainly a first. It’s a sign of the times.
The new F1 season is framed, like everything right now, within the bigger picture of the appalling atrocities taking place in Ukraine. In that context, the timing of the race in Saudi should be considered awkward – but it probably won’t be for a sport that has a long history of turning a blind eye to where it travels versus troublesome realworld politics.
Even F1 couldn’t ignore Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, of course, and moved swiftly to cancel the Russian GP, while the American Haas team cut loose driver Nikita Mazepin and the backing that came with him from Uralkali, the company owned by his father Dmitry, who has close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
For Gene Haas, these were commendably decisive actions that represented a significant financial blow to his team. Then again, it was also the only decision that he could take, and the same is emphatically the case for F1 and its lucrative links with Russia. There can be no credit for a call that it simply had to make.