WMSC ratifies 2012 calendar

07/12/2011

The FIA's World Motor Sport Council has ratified the calendar submitted last month, with Austin and Bahrain still included.

Meeting in New Delhi, the WSMC rubber stamped the twenty-date calendar - the longest in the sport's history - retaining both the United States Grand Prix in Austin, which has been the subject of intense speculation for some time, and the controversial event in Bahrain.

The thumbs-up for Austin follows Pitpass' report that in an eleventh hour bid, promoters at the Circuit of the Americas have paid the $25m race sanction fee to Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One World Championship company. Indeed, an official statement from the organizers in Austin is expected later today.

As for Bahrain, the decision to retain the race comes just days after a bomb exploded close to the British embassy in Manama and amidst rising tension in the Gulf state.

This year, the FIA was left looking foolish having dithered over the event and relying on its own report into the situation in the country, a report that was widely, and rightly, ridiculed.