• F1 teams given the option not to go to Bahrain Grand Prix …
• … but must pay for breaking contract if they do not go
Bernie Ecclestone made the 12 Formula One teams an offer they must refuse on Tuesday when he indicated that they could decide whether or not to compete at next week's Bahrain Grand Prix. The words he left unspoken were that, should the teams take him up on the offer, it would cost each of them millions for breaking contracts.
"We've no way we can force people to go there," Ecclestone had said in response to a Guardian story in which a leading member of one team said everyone hoped the FIA would call the race off. "We can't say: 'You've got to go' – although they would be in breach of their agreement with us if they didn't go – but it doesn't help.
"Commercially they have to go, but whether they decide to or not is up to them. I've had no one say anything other than: 'We're going to be racing in Bahrain.'"
Two triple world champions who later became team chiefs – Sir Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda – explained why the teams would have to go to Bahrain, provided the race continues to be endorsed by Ecclestone and the FIA, the sport's governing body. Lauda, who was in charge of the Jaguar team for two years, said: "The consequences are that if you don't go you have to pay, so you have to be very careful. Teams can't just say they're not going. We're all together in one world championship for Formula One.
"One team can't just say they're not going. If they say that they're not part of the sport. They have a Concorde agreement. If teams can just do whatever they want we could not have races all over the world."
Ecclestone and Formula One have the dozen constructors over a barrel. Because if any team – particularly a smaller operation – decides to break their contract with the sport's commercial rights holder the consequences could be financially ruinous. The difficulties the teams face are not even purely financial. Stewart said: "I wouldn't put it down to a financial figure. It's more of a responsibility and a contractural commitment, not only to Bernie Ecclestone but to all the sponsors.
"This is the largest TV sport in the world on an annual basis. What about the sponsors. Whether it's Mobil, or Total or Shell – they're going to seen by hundreds of millions of people. Sky alone are covering the race for three days.
"If you are a sponsor for that team, do you think it's correct not to get the exposure they have bought as a supplier? It's the responsibility of the race organisers to make the race safe for us to participate in."
If a secret ballot was taken in the paddock it is likely that all teams would choose not to go to Bahrain, where there are likely to be disruptive pro-democracy demonstrations unless there is a military clampdown by the government.
But Stewart added: "I would go. The commercial rights holder has sold a package, at a price, and it is part of the constructors agreement that they attend the races that have been published. As a team owner I would have to honour my agreement both orally and legally. I don't know how much they would lose."
More controversially, Stewart added: "Bahrain is probably more advanced in creating democracy than any other country in the entire Middle East. Look at Syria and Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, and they are not as advanced in their democracy as Bahrain. But Bahrain does have a problem with religion, just as we did in Northern Ireland.
"None of these countries have full democracies. But no democracy has been created without time. It's ironic that a meeting about Bahrain is going to take place in China, where they've had Olympic Games and everything else.
"If we don't go to Bahrain how are we going to suggest that we're going to go to Russia in 2014? And we go to Korea. We've got to be very careful."