With Formula One ready to go racing again in Bahrain this week it will be a grand season premiere once more accompanied by a chorus of controversy over a host country criticised for its human rights record. It is a refrain that echoes across the sport’s expansion in the Middle East but one that F1’s CEO, Stefano Domenicali, is to his credit unafraid of debating. Indeed, the Italian insists he is proud of what F1 is achieving by wielding what he describes as its soft power.
Sitting in F1’s offices in St James’s Market in London rather than hiding behind the PR homilies that were so often the response before he took over in 2021, Domenicali has welcomed the chance to put his case for taking his sport to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
In a conversation that ranged across difficult issues often uncomfortable for the sport, Domenicali did not shirk any subject. It was a refreshing and ultimately instructive approach because, while one may question his arguments, it is hard to doubt the sincerity of the Italian’s belief that racing really is about more than money, that F1 can make a difference and that it will do, as he puts it, the right thing.
“I love taking these challenges on because from a personal perspective I can try to shape what I think is right,” he says. “To open up the discussion on issues in these places. I take pride in it. I know it is easy to criticise me but I have no fear because with soft power, I believe in the right context, in the right way, I can achieve results.”
Domenicali makes repeated reference to his belief in his sport’s ability to wield soft power in working to engender change but what does this somewhat nebulous phrase actually mean in the context of F1? His answer is telling on what the sport has evolved into, as a global force with highly influential participants in the form of its drivers and teams.
“I have the duty of running a sport that is more than a sport today,” he says. “I need to keep the sport in the sport dimension but I also feel that due to the relationships I have and the network we are creating in the world it can adapt to become a positive.”
The principal argument behind Domenicali and F1’s position is that the sport is better able to effect change by visiting these countries and holding them to commitments they have made that are legally binding. The Guardian has seen the documents, shared with drivers and teams but not publicly disseminated, demonstrating, for example, the commitments Saudi Arabia is making – obligations that F1 expects them to meet. Domenicali insists the sport would walk away if they were not.
“Yes, absolutely we would walk and they know that,” he says. “They know very well it is in the contract. That’s why for them this is a spotlight that is beneficial to them to showcase that they want to change.”
The stance is countered by a powerful and pervasive argument that the sport would have a greater impact by not racing in countries with poor human rights records. Human rights groups have been unequivocal in their criticism that countries such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are actively involved in sportswashing.
Joey Shea, the Saudi and UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “If F1 is operating in a country which has a horrible record on human rights and not saying anything then you are not a neutral actor. You are actively helping this abusive state to whitewash its abuses.”
When the argument is put to Domenicali he insists that F1 employs a team of independent auditors to assess human rights issues in every country it visits and to ensure they are meeting the sport’s stated commitment to human rights. He also argues that a confrontational approach, or indeed simply not engaging, would be counterproductive.
“F1 is much stronger to do what we are doing because we are there, to be there to monitor what they are doing,” he says. “I truly believe in keeping the pressure in the right way, because what I have learned is that if you want to be respected by people who think differently from you, the best way is not to shout at them. We don’t have to create barriers. Sport can be good in finding the point of connection, of contact, instead of the point of difference.”
Rights groups question this, specifically on whether any amount of connection and respect actually yields results. The Bahrain GP recently extended its contract to 2036 having held its first race in 2004. The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird) has claimed F1 failed to conduct a due diligence process in assessment of human rights before awarding the new contract and alleges that “forced disappearances, extrajudicial killing and torture” continue to occur in Bahrain and that far from seeing any improvement since F1 first visited the Kingdom, it has only engendered worse abuse. The group wrote to F1 on Monday demanding the sport address a “deterioration in Bahrain’s human rights situation”.
Domenicali weighs this carefully before offering his counterargument, maintaining that F1 is seeing a different picture and that the sport can only go so far in how it can influence a sovereign state.
“I would say that’s not what we see, it’s a difference on vision and opinion,” he says of the Bird allegations. “We feel totally confident of the reports we are receiving from independent auditors that there is not any signs that are confirming the kind of things that some groups are saying. We see a country that is very keen to be open in discussion but they have their own duty, their own independence in which we cannot be involved. Otherwise in every country we would be discussing the governing process of a country.”
It is not entirely convincing given the wealth of personal evidence cited by human rights groups but in this F1 and the countries themselves are hamstrung by their unwillingness to make the process transparent. What changes are happening and the ones F1 have encouraged and helped effect remain a private affair neither party will publicise.
F1’s popularity has led to an inexorable expansion into the Middle East and the sport’s business is booming, in part at least because of that expansion. Countries in the region are willing to pay fees that dwarf those of European meetings. The deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar are worth a reported £42m a year and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi are not far off that figure. F1, it is argued, is willing to adapt to almost any regime to maintain such a lucrative income.
It is the most widespread interpretation of why F1 is there, that the sport, as ever, is following the money and ethics be damned. Domenicali is robust in disputing this, however, making the case that F1’s very success means it is not beholden to questionable regimes.
“At this moment the sport is so strong that we have a lot of options to go elsewhere,” he says. “The idea, that it is money that leads, is not the only one. Because the money could be given by other countries who are ready to come, offering the same amount. Absolutely we could take it elsewhere because of the demand.”
The debate will not go away, nor will the widespread distaste at F1’s presence in many of these countries, yet the sport does at least have a CEO who believes he can induce what he has described as a revolution taking place in silence. Dismissing him as merely an apologist would be unfair to a man who sincerely maintains he can make a difference.
“If you put blinkers on, to say: ‘I don’t care, because I am not interested in being there,’ it’s not recognising the world of today,” he says. “I am there to personally build physical relations, a point of communication and of understanding the different sensibilities of certain cultures.”
