Haha - yeah I managed to find that, too. I think it's an alternative spelling of 'Budaiya', which is nowhere near BIC. Formula1.com is under attack from DDoS, I think.
It took a while but F1 media are now reporting the DDoS attack. Now, how quickly can Formula1.com react? please log in to view this image Well done, Formula 1. Nice job. Sorry if that sounds disingenuously condemnatory but I'm referring to Ecclestone's repeated invitations to protestors to use F1 to get their point across, including during Crown Prince's interview following FP2 today when he said Crown Prince was "silly" for having F1 there and giving the protestors a global media audience. The release of today's press conference seems tardy but Sky has just shown a snippet of it.
I don't think it is. Have you tried browsing around, looking at results, etc.? DDoS doesn't actually take a site down, it just makes access sporadic and lethargic because it's being bombarded by thousands of requests.
As more compromised PCs come online access will become more and more difficult. I wouldn't rate Formula1.com's chances when Sony was down for days but you never know what response plans they have in place.
Ummm haven't we just been to China? You don't see protests there because they'd be stamped out before they start. Won't we be going to Abu Dhabi later this season which has a very similar form of government? It won't be long before we're off to Russia where there are currently protests against corrupt elections. These aren't easy decisions - clearly the safety of teams, circuit staff, spectators and local citizens should be paramount but if you cancel unnecessarily then where will violence be utilised to gain publicity next? If you start boycotting countries on moral grounds, where does it stop? Anyway, does boycotting achieve as much as engaging with suspect regimes? Rubbish circuit though I agree.
Good points. On this forum, the focus of the argument against running the race has been in relation to F1 being used by the Bahraini authorities for political ends, rather than because of the government's uncompromising response to protests or its authoritarian rule but observations of events and political positions are inevitable. I agree that it's not F1's place to pass judgement on whether a country it goes to is being run according to whatever social and political mores another country espouses and just about every country it visits can be accused of oppression and corruption, either current or historic. I do think that Ecclestone has courted political involvement while claiming that he isn't.
Your points about China and Abu Dhabi are correct, no doubt, but in Bahrain Formula One's presence is so intertwined with the escalation of both protest and its suppression, unlike in those two countries. The race is still on because of money, not sport and I think you will know that. There are also grave safety concerns, which were not the case last week in China either.
