07/06/2011
NEWS STORY
The leader of the FIA's fact finding mission to Bahrain has defended the report which led to the country's race being reinstated.
Amidst mounting criticism - to put it mildly - of his report, Carlos Gracia has spoken out over his feedback to the World Motor Sport Council, which directly led to its decision to reinstate the race.
"I have spoken to human rights groups and they told me they (human rights) have not been violated," Gracia was quoted as saying by the Spanish media today.
"These are freely expressed opinions," he continued. "I think the opinions of those on site are worth more than those who have no knowledge of the situation. When these protests take place, the opposition is using a large event to make themselves known and paint a picture of a situation that is not the real one. If there are controlled, non-violent protests it does not seem a terrible thing to us."
However, Gracia's report has been widely dismissed, not least by Pitpass' man in Bahrain, while Bernie Ecclestone has now admitted his doubts. "We listened to that report from the FIA and that was saying there were no problems at all in Bahrain," said the F1 supremo. "But that is not what I am hearing and I think we can see that we need to be careful."
A copy of Mr Gracia's report to the FIA can be seen here.