the times | Monday December 6 2021 2GM 61
Sport
How the season has unfolded
Points after each race this season so far
400350300250200150100500
BahrainItaly
(Imola)Spain Azerbaijan Austria Great
BritainBelgium Italy
(Monza)Turkey MexicoPortugal Monaco France Austria Hungary Netherlands Russia US Brazil1825
43446994 105 105131156182 185195 202.5224.5 226.5246.5262.5287.5312.5332.561101 101119138150177187 199.5221.5 221.5244.5256.5275.5293.5318.5351.5343.5XXX.XXXX.X80Max Verstappen
Lewis HamiltonQatar Abu
DhabiSaudi
Arabia4 5
L
ike Lewis Hamilton, I do not
feel completely comfortable
being here in Saudi Arabia.
The human-rights record,
the oppression of women
and horrific laws on LGBTQ+ rights
are enough to make me want to stay
away.
Public beheadings are still reported
to occur and Amnesty International
has said that at least 40 people were
executed between January and July
this year. As recently as 2018, women
were not allowed to drive or attend
public events.
Yet I am intrigued by what I find
being on the ground here in Jeddah
and the impact that sport has had
already in the short time it has been
coming to the kingdom.
To think sport and politics do not
mix is to not understand the power of
sport. When Formula E arrived on
the outskirts of Riyadh in 2018, it met
an enormous backlash, but that
weekend made history — not for
being the first motor-racing event in
the country but for hosting the first
concert in which men and women
could both attend and mingle freely.
They could also dance, just a year
after it was reported that a 14-
year-old boy was arrested
for doing the Macarena in
the street.
It was the start of
something. Since then,
other concerts have
been held with men
and women mixing.
That same year,
women were given the
right to drive — although
many of those women who
broke the rules while
campaigning for the law to change
are still languishing in prison.
The laws were also loosened on
what women wear, with head
coverings no longer necessary, nor
the black abaya, the loose-fitting, full-
length robes.
With the ascent to power of the
36-year-old Prince Mohammed bin
Salman (known as MBS), the rules for
women have been slackened and
there has been a proactive push to
move the economy’s reliance away
from oil and into the entertainment
industry.
However, it must be remembered
that this is also the same MBS who
the US intelligence agencies
concluded was behind the 2018
murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the
journalist. Stefano Domenicali, the
chief executive of Formula One, said
that F1 going to Qatar and here in
Saudi Arabia would help to driveprogress and that “shutting them off”
would not enact change.
He has a point. In Saudi Arabia’s
89-year history, little had changed
until sport arrived in the country.
With a spotlight shining directly at
them and all of the world’s media not
just looking on, but reporting from
the ground, the kingdom has had
little choice but to slowly make
progress.
Arriving at Jeddah airport, we were
greeted by a wall of female border
control guards who checked our
passports. My initial thought was that
they had been rolled out for our
benefit, but speaking to
others in the paddock who
have travelled to Saudi
Arabia a lot, I am told
that is the norm.
I spoke to some local
women who were
working at the circuit,
and they welcomed F1
coming to their country
because it was “exciting but
also gave us jobs”.
The average age in Saudi Arabia
is under 32 — this is a generation that
has proven itself to want to do things
their way and who will push for
change.
The ambitious six-month plan to
build the Jeddah Corniche Circuit
proved to be too ambitious. Water
poured into the teams’ hospitality and
garages from the floors above; one
team even suffered a burst sewage
pipe in their kitchen, which was
thankfully fixed quickly.
We are here because of the money
— a ten-year deal worth $50 million
(about £38 million) each year — but
there have been some positives from
F1 and other sports coming to
Saudi Arabia.
That progress must not be allowed
to stall. F1 has a responsibility to
continually check in on the
advancements being made here. If the
improvement in human rights does
not continue, F1 needs to think again.MOTORSPORT IMAGES/SPLASHfinale bitter rivalry deserves
F1 driving social
change but still a
long road ahead
Rebecca Clancy admits
she feels uneasy being
at race in a kingdom
synonymous with
human-rights abuses
£38m
Cost each year of the
ten-year deal for
Saudi Arabia to host
a grand prixBin Salman, above, is believed to be
behind the murder of Khashoggi