After a long night in Jeddah, the Formula One drivers announced at 3:00 am local time that they would not boycott the race weekend
The Formula One drivers’ union GPDA held intense discussions on Friday night about a possible boycott of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but ultimately decided to go ahead with the race weekend despite the bombing of an Aramco facility near the circuit.
GPDA director George Russell initially sidestepped the question of whether or not to race. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, on the other hand, was the first to confirm to several journalists that the race would take place (“We’ll be racing”). Only later did it gradually leak out that allegedly all the drivers had also agreed to take part in the Grand Prix.
Initially, Formula One CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA President Mohammed bin Sulayem had announced the provisional decision to go ahead with the race weekend on Friday evening after the second practice session. With this, a possible cancellation already seemed to be off the table.
But the decision-makers had done the maths without the drivers. They first met at 22:00 local time for their regular drivers’ briefing, as is always the case on Friday evening. But the fact that this time team managers and Formula 1 bosses were also present was an indication that this was not a normal meeting.
Then the team bosses left the room before Domenicali and Ross Brawn were invited back in a little later. A little more than an hour later, it was already after 1:00 a.m. local time, Domenicali and Brawn left the meeting and the drivers were again among themselves.
At 1:20 the team bosses were invited in. Half an hour later they marched off again. The Formula 1 Twitteria was already speculating about a cancellation, and quite a few felt reminded of Melbourne 2020, when the race was also discussed for hours before it had to be cancelled due to the outbreak of the corona virus at that time.
Among the drivers, it is reported, there were several who were uncomfortable with the idea of contesting the race weekend. The officials tried to convince them with information about the security situation and to dissuade them from boycotting.
It was then well after 2:00 am when the drivers’ meeting finally broke up. Most of them left the room through the back entrance to avoid the journalists waiting in front.
George Russell, on the other hand, came through the main entrance together with McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl and then made his way to the race control room.
Russell is the only director of the GPDA drivers’ union present in person this weekend. Sebastian Vettel is known to be sitting at home in Switzerland, and chairman Alexander Wurz is also not on site.
Others had already made their decision to leave Saudi Arabia for security reasons at that point. For example, ‘Sky’ pundit Ralf Schumacher, who was applauded for his decision by many Formula 1 fans.
