This year’s Bahrain Grand Prix is less than two weeks away and it still isn’t certain if it is going to happen or not. Until a couple of days ago everyone was saying that it would happen while a few were saying that it shouldn’t. Now it appears that doubts are setting in with Bernie Ecclestone saying that he will not force any of the teams to go but that if they don’t go they will be in breach of their contracts with him. Not that he’s forcing them, oh no, it’s up to them isn’t it?

Of course this uncertainty is nothing new as last year this race was scheduled, cancelled, rescheduled and finally re-cancelled.

It is well known that the Formula 1 powers-that-be have a love-hate relationship with the Australian Grand Prix organizers in Melbourne and their strange reluctance to hold their event in the middle of the night just to please TV schedulers back in Europe.

It appears, however, that most of the teams have no such issues and they have even gone so far as to design their cars for the 2012 season to look like the duck-billed platypus which is endemic to eastern Australia as a mark of respect to their hosts.

It remains to be seen how the design of the cars will be changed throughout the season as they visit other countries.

After facing criticism from, well, almost everybody, including a few people that were in favour of it just last week, the Bahrain Grand Prix has once again been cancelled. Hopefully, this time it will stay cancelled.

One of the reasons given for the sudden about face was apparently to prevent disruption to the travel plans and reservations of drivers, teams and supporters. So now that the Bahrain event has been removed from the schedule the inaugural Indian Grand Prix has been reinstated to its original October 30th date… no doubt causing serious disruption to the travel plans and reservations of any drivers, teams and supporters that had already rescheduled their trips to Bahrain and India after last week’s announcement. At least the airlines must be making a killing out of this mess, they’ve got to be loving all those cancellation and rescheduling fees.

For reasons best known to itself, the FIA has reinstated the Bahrain GP to the 2011 F1 schedule. It will now take place on October 30th, the date previously allocated to the inaugural Indian GP. The Indian event has been moved to December 11th and will be combined with the FIA Annual General Assembly and Prize-Giving Gala.

This decision by the FIA has been met with almost complete condemnation by the teams, fans of the sport and widespread public opinion. The situation in Bahrain is still not stable and a ‘Day of Rage’, the rallying call for protestors, has been called on the proposed new date of the race. The Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) has expressed concerns over the matter and will meet to discuss it further.

FIA decision or not, there is still a lot of doubt as to whether the event will actually take place and very little support for what is usually one of the most processional, and least interesting, events of the year.