F1 teams say they will race in Russia, despite the crisis in Ukraine and downing of a Malaysian airliner, unless the country’s debut grand prix in October is called off or they are ordered not to go.
“Obviously what’s going on in Russia and that part of the world is of huge concern to everybody,” Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams said.
“But we’ve always said that as a sport we try and disengage from taking a political angle on these things.”
Monisha Kaltenborn, principal of the Sauber team who have Russian partners and have committed to training up Russian reserve driver Sergey Sirotkin, agreed.
“We have to rely on the governing body and the commercial rights holder.
“They are the ones who have the responsibility and we will do as they say like we’ve done in the past,” Kaltenborn said.
The European Union has threatened to impose harsher economic sanctions on Russia after 298 people were killed when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crashed near Donetsk on July 17.
Many of those on board the flight were Dutch citizens.
Western states have blamed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine for downing the passenger plane and some politicians have called for the Formula One race to be cancelled.
Malaysian state oil company Petronas is the title sponsor of the championship-leading Mercedes team while Williams have Dutch human resources multi-national Randstad as a backer.
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell partners Ferrari also have a Russian sponsor this season in software security company Kaspersky Lab.
Marussia are Formula One’s only Russian-registered team while Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat is the country’s only driver on the starting grid.
Similar pressure
Formula One’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who has resisted similar pressure in the past to cancel the Bahrain Grand Prix over human rights concerns, has said the contract with Russia will not be broken.
“(Russian president Vladimir) Putin personally has been very supportive and very helpful and we will do the same,” British media quoted the 83-year-old as saying.
Formula One teams who have entered the championship are contractually bound to compete in every race, with 19 scheduled this year, and risk exclusion and heavy fines if they do not.
Christian Horner, principal of cham-pions Red Bull and close to Ecclestone, reacted tetchily when facing further questions about the human rights records of some of the countries visited by F1.
China and Bahrain are long-standing races on the calendar while Azerbaijan announced that it would be hosting a ‘Grand Prix of Europe’ in Baku in 2016.
“Look, there is a Formula One calendar that comes out in October and November and we all have a choice whether we enter the world championship or not,” Horner replied.
“When we sign up for that champion-ship we put our faith and trust in the promoter and the FIA and we will attend those races unless they deem it unnecessary for us to be there.”