Despite a missile attack on an oil facility just seven miles away from the Jeddah street circuit during Friday’s opening practice, the second race of the season is set to go ahead as planned,
while the decision to hold a race in Saudi Arabia at all has also been questioned after 81 men were executed in the country in one day a fortnight ago.
However, the Formula 1 boss argued that decisions are made with a focus on making a positive impact around the globe.
“I don’t think that is a right consideration,” he told Sky Sports. “No one can judge our morality, to be honest. It is a matter of putting in place all the things that have to be considered.
It is a tricky matter, obviously, it took quite a bit of time,” said Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc as he admitted “concerns”. “I think we have to listen to the people that are taking care about the security here. And we have to trust them.”
“Definitely we discussed and we were concerned about our safety,” explained Sergio Perez. “But also the safety of our mechanics, engineers, everyone in here. But obviously, there is so much we know as drivers so it was just important.
“We got all together at the end of the day, this is our sport and we are all in it together. And yeah, we felt that the right thing was to go ahead and just race.”
Carlos Sainz added: “You need to think that it’s 20 of us with 20 opinions, 20 considerations, 20 different people talking so it’s always going to take a long time. And in the end, we all concluded that probably the best way to move forward is to listen to the authorities here, trust them and there’s not much more that we can do.”
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Pertinently, on whether the Saudi race should continue, Leclerc said: “It’s definitely a discussion that we should have after this race, once everything calms down.”
George Russell, meanwhile, was integral in the discussions on Friday night as a GPDA director.
“Ultimately we trust in Stefano, Formula 1 as a whole, and we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t right to be here,” he said.
“I do think it’s the right decision. I don’t have all the answers, I’m not an expert in politics or military defence or whatever. So you have to trust in the people around.”
