Motorsport: FIA critical of Ecclestone's efforts to promote Bahrain

The shadow of the Bahrain Grand Prix continued to hang over Formula One even in Montreal this weekend, with evidence of the underplayed war between Bernie Ecclestone and FIA president Jean Todt.

The governing body said the sport's ringmaster continued to try to save the controversial race even after the Bahrainis themselves had abandoned their efforts to have it reinstated on the 2011 calendar. Even though the Gulf state confirmed on Friday (NZ time) that it had withdrawn its application for reinstatement, a delegation from Bahrain attended their fourth grand prix in a row.

Last week Ecclestone bowed to an ultimatum from 11 of the 12 teams who said unequivocally that they would not send their cars and crews to the race.

The FIA say that despite that, he still sought to have the race run on the weekend of December 4, rather than cancel it altogether. The teams had previously made it clear that they did not approve of Bahrain taking India's scheduled October 30 date, with that race being slotted in on December 11. The FIA claims that Ecclestone asked it as late as Friday to accept Bahrain as the season finale.

The revelation appeared designed to show Ecclestone in a less than favourable light, and is thought to reflect the level of antipathy that exists between him and Todt, the man that Ecclestone first parachuted into the ailing Ferrari team in 1992.

Thankfully, Montreal embraces its race, and downtown hums every evening in the same way that the on-track action did when drivers such as Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil and Kamui Kobayashi were not interrupting proceedings by crashing their cars into the concrete walls that lie in wait for those who are less than millimetre perfect.

In its own splendidly named way the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is like Monaco, but with places to overtake. And thanks to two zones for the drag reducing rear wings - the long straight after the hairpin, and again after the chicane by the pits - we should avoid a Monagasque procession.

When qualifying arrive Sebastian Vettel won his sixth pole of the season by outracing a pair of Ferraris and a looming rainstorm.

The Red Bull driver, who has won five of the first six races, posted a lap of 1 minute 13.014 seconds.

Following him were Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, 0.185 back, and Felipe Massa, 0.203 slower than Vettel, the runaway leader in the drivers' championship.

"Mistakes can happen," said Vettel. "Surely it is better when they happen on Friday. But it is not fun to come back to the garage without your car."

Fourth on the grid is the other Red Bull driven by Mark Webber, whose speed-boosting KERS system did not work.

He did not appear at all in the morning's last practice before qualifying.

- INDEPENDENT, AP