Saudi Arabia could be ideal GP host — but F1 should walk a mile for now

As Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al Faisal, president of the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation, who leads motor sport in the Kingdom told Motor Sport earlier this year, the aim is to have Saudi drivers racing for Saudi teams at the top level of motor sport, and to entice existing teams — including McLaren which is part-owned by the Saudi investment fund — to move their operations to the kingdom.

“We want to be a hub,” said Prince Khalid. “We want to play a bigger role than just hosting events.

“Why shouldn’t F1 go to any country? I mean for them it is to inspire the people, to show the people what they can do. They need to be in countries like Saudi Arabia to inspire – the drivers have a big influence.

“If we have different views about political things, religion things, cultural things…this shouldn’t stop people from going. Everybody should go, should speak his mind…”

And that’s where the bubble bursts.

A government official encouraging people to speak their mind would be news to the 81 people killed in a mass execution last year, some of whom were convicted of being involved in anti-government demonstrations.

Anyone criticising the king faces a similar fate, while protestors being evicted to build Saudi Araba’s mega city of Neom, have also been sentenced to death.

It doesn’t really matter how much support a country is giving motor racing when it’s executing people who disagree with its rulers. You would think that F1 would walk a mile from such a flagrant disregard for human rights.

Perhaps the reason it doesn’t lies in the many millions of dollars that Aramco and other Saudi funds are funelling into the sport — as investigated in the current April 2023 issue of Motor Sport.

It would be naive to imagine that this doesn’t buy any influence, especially after Thursday’s F1 press conference where a series of drivers were asked about their view of racing in Jeddah following a nearby missile strike during last year’s grand prix weekend.

They spoke of their confidence in racing in Jeddah, their pride that the country is evolving, and their determination to enjoy the stay. The one exception was Lewis Hamilton. “Not much really to add,” he replied. “All the opposite to everything they said.”

Even Hamilton whose worldview is usually considered and clearly explained refused to be drawn further on the matter — perhaps unsurprisingly given the grim consequences that can come from questioning the state.

For drivers however, Saudi Arabian life looks very different from the motor racing bubble.

Although several arrived in the paddock wearing shorts, there was no sign of the religious police racing up behind them with a stick to deliver a thwack to their calves and order them to get dressed more modestly — which happens to UK visitors on the streets of Jeddah.

And despite Hamilton’s reservations, nobody is likely to arrest him for his implicit criticism of the Kingdom.

When Motor Sport visited Saudi Arabia for the Dakar rally in January, one member of the group — a journalist from another country — was caught trying to smuggle alcohol into the country and interrogated. While punishment for the offence includes imprisonment and flogging, he was allowed into the country with no apparent repercussions.

Saudi citizens may well raise an eyebrow at the slogan, ‘We Race as One’

That motor sport is being given freedoms denied to Saudi’s own citizens should be uncomfortable enough for the sport, let alone the accusation of sportswashing — of lending its glamour to a regime that murders, tortures and detains without trial.

F1’s well-worn argument is that its presence is so inspirational to rulers that they will throw open their arms to human rights and free speech.

It hasn’t yet offered any evidence of this in Bahrain, where it has been racing for 20 years, let alone Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps that isn’t so surprising when the main incentive — hosting an F1 race has already been handed over.

A more persuasive approach has already been set out in compelling simplicity by Mark Hughes: By aligning with an international organisation such as the UN and recognising a country-by-country index of human rights, racing’s governing body, the FIA could stipulate that countries meet a minimum standard before hosting an international race.

It would be straightforward to administer, leave the tough decisions to experts and — crucially — enforce a minimum standard of human rights before a grand prix was held.

Complying with that would dispel many of the objections to racing in Saudi Arabia and allow us to focus on the seemingly genuine desire to establish a motor sport industry and tradition in the Middle East.

But in the meantime, as “influential” drivers shy away from the matter and F1 itself stoically ignores the brutality, the racing goes on.