Bahrain F1 GP, who's in?

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:56 am

Security has really been stepped up here. Armored police trucks are at major intersections and there are checkpoints on the roads to the BIC. There are nightly demonstrations, which consist of locals burning tires and upending trash dumpsters, but it has been confined to the Sitra district, which is where the majority of the Shia live. Realistically, if you stay out of Sitra, and there really isn't anything in Sitra that you want, then you shouldn't see any trouble here. Technically all of the car dealerships are in Sitra, but they are on the fringe of it along the highway, not where the people live. I actually take that highway to and from work every day; I'm mostly working down south at a bunker in the desert this trip, and I see the police garrisons and occasionally see/smell smoke from the tires burning, but the agitators stick to the heart of their district.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:49 am

I have heard that they expect things to maybe peak today? That Friday tends to be the day for protests? There have been some reports of random (not targeted at F1 teams, but involving F1 team members) interactions. I think some Force India team members had a scare to/from the circuit in that a Molotov Cocktail landed near a vehicle that they were traveling in yesterday. The Sauber team apparently had something happen as well. Today Force India skipped free practice 2 today so that they would not have to travel from the circuit after dark. Lets hope things remain relatively quiet.

Reports from the circuit say the teams are struggling with a dusty track. Mercedes seems to continue to be doing well.

Richard

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:32 am

Friday is the first day of the weekend and people have a lot of free time on Friday. There have been some protests, and the local Shia do like to pile burning tires in the road to disrupt traffic, overturn dumpsters and cars of people they don't like, and they do throw molotov cocktails at the police water cannons, but I haven't heard anything about attacking F1 personnel. One of the techs here was driving through one of the worst of the protests where they were flipping cars of Sunni drivers over and they just waved him through when they saw that he was Australian. I drive from Manama to the southern desert every day, right past the outskirts of Sitra, where the bulk of the Shia population lives and the heart of the discontent, and I have seen evidence of some protests, smoke from burning tires, trashed streets from dumpster flipping, and the burned out shells of a couple of cars.

I take the advice of the ex-pats and just stay out of Sitra. There's not anything there but a bunch of really pissed off people anyway. The rest of the country seems fine, like I said, some evidence of protests, but nothing dangerous. I haven't been to the west coast where the BIC is yet though, I guess that I'll find out Sunday morning. There was a report in the local paper about protestors, I think at the McLaren car display, but I don't think that it was bad.

Looking at the news, most of the bad reports are coming from the UK press, who also reported that the race had been canceled, so I take their "news" with a grain of salt.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 10:40 am

And yes, dust is everywhere, and it's a very fine dust. It gets in everything. I'm working in a bunker in the desert and am covered in it. The sand here has been blown around for so long that the particles are small and rounded, like little ball bearings. One of the guys here said that it causes problems if you use it to make concrete. Hitting a patch of it on the road can be very exciting.

Edit - And it's been very windy this past week, 30+ MPH winds for several days.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:17 pm

Maybe Richard is right. Driving back to Manama this evening as we crossed the bridge, the other side of it was on fire, with flames 10-12 feet high. It looks like something big caught fire on the bridge and then went through the railing into the water, leaving flaming rubble strewn for 40 feet. It must have just happened because people were frantically running down the banks of the river toward where whatever it was that went over. There were other fires as well, either cars of big piles of tires, we didn't really want to get close enough to tell. Police are everywhere, with checkpoints set up all down the highway south and into Manama. I'll have to see what it looks like in the morning when I head back down south again. It's getting pretty exciting here!

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:52 pm

Just take care of yourself! There will always be plenty of GPs to go to in the future.

Richard

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Well this is getting more fun. Apparently some hacktivists have DDOS'd the Formula 1 site and have issued a few press releases.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 4:25 am

I stayed in my hotel room last night and ordered room service for dinner. As of this morning, everything appears fine again. We drove back over the bridge this morning and it looked like nothing ever happened. Piles of burnt tires are gone and garbage has been cleaned from the streets and put back in the dumpsters. Police presence is minimal with no checkpoints, armored vehicles, or riot gear. There is no mention in the local paper about anything going on last night. It's kind of spooky. People are prepared though, here's the gas station that we stopped at this morning, four types of fire suppression, plus two more fire extinguishers at every pump. On the bright side, filling up our SUV only cost $15:

Judi Westerfield · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:20 am

http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr ... otest_area

Wow, this doesn't sound too safe Roger. Thanks for the updates.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:03 am

Safety is relative; this place is Disney Land compared to Somalia when I was there. The thing about Bahrain is that the clashes, while present, are limited to the parties involved in the dispute. If that changes, then it will not be safe, but as things stand, foreigners are as safe here as they are in France or most other places, and probably safer than they would be in Detroit. While it can be disconcerting to drive by a pile of tires on fire and police in riot gear dispersing demonstrators, I haven't seen where it poses a significant danger to anyone other than the police or the protestors.

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 3:32 pm

Tonight was not bad, only one checkpoint, no fires, and a relatively light police presence. The only place that I saw a significant police force was on the road to Sitra, and they were just watching an empty street. Hopefully they got it all out of their systems on Friday.

RobLupella · **Posted:** Sun Apr 22, 2012 2:43 am

Andrew Jonell wrote:

Well this is getting more fun. Apparently some hacktivists have DDOS'd the Formula 1 site and have issued a few press releases.

You'd think Bernie could afford better network security..... :roll:

Roger McDaniels · **Posted:** Sun Apr 22, 2012 2:12 pm

On the plane, had to hustle from the race to the airport to catch my plane, but had a fantastic time. Can't hear anything and spent an obscene amount of money in the stores in the village. Real heart breaker to see Button go out like that. Thought Kimi was going to catch Vettel near the end after he closed that huge gap, then after the T1 pass attempt (right in front of me, had seats just before T1, everyone was holding their breath) Vettel pulled away and it was pretty much over for the podium finishers, several edge-of-the-seat/out-of-the-seat moments, although it was an amazingly clean race. Will post pics and vids when I get back tomorrow.

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

RobLupella wrote:

Andrew Jonell wrote:

Well this is getting more fun. Apparently some hacktivists have DDOS'd the Formula 1 site and have issued a few press releases.

You'd think Bernie could afford better network security..... :roll:

Note: They brought down Visa.

clinehall · **Posted:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:56 am

Roger McDaniels wrote:

On the plane, had to hustle from the race to the airport to catch my plane, but had a fantastic time. Can't hear anything and spent an obscene amount of money in the stores in the village. Real heart breaker to see Button go out like that. Thought Kimi was going to catch Vettel near the end after he closed that huge gap, then after the T1 pass attempt (right in front of me, had seats just before T1, everyone was holding their breath) Vettel pulled away and it was pretty much over for the podium finishers, several edge-of-the-seat/out-of-the-seat moments, although it was an amazingly clean race. Will post pics and vids when I get back tomorrow.

Cool, looking forward to it.

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