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Formula 1 team bosses have gathered again in the Jeddah paddock in the early hours of Saturday morning, as a drivers’ meeting lasted over three hours continued.
All 20 drivers and the 10 team principals had originally attended a meeting with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem at 10pm local time to discuss the situation following Yemen rebel group Houthi’s missile strike on an Aramco oil depot six miles from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix venue on Friday.
Following that initial meeting, Domenicali and Ben Sulayem declared there had been unanimous support for the rest of the race weekend to go ahead as schedule.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff confirmed that this was the case among teams.
But all the drivers remained in the F1 hospitality room afterwards, with the gathering turning into a meeting of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.
The Race understands that a number of drivers had earlier expressed concern about continuing with the grand prix following the missile incident.
The drivers’ discussions continued for a further two hours, with Domenicali and F1’s managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn rejoining them for a time.
Then at nearly 1.30am local time team bosses began returning to the building, initially to gather in a separate room before joining the drivers again.
All 10 team principals were present, with Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto returning to the circuit to join the meeting having previously left the paddock.
After around half an hour, the team bosses left the hospitality building in unison and headed for the circuit’s race tower building.
The drivers remained in the room where they had now been for three and a half hours in total.
McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl rejoined them and continued discussions, before the drivers’ group finally left the building just before 2.30am local time, nearly four and a half hours after they had first gathered for the meeting with Domenicali.
GPDA director George Russell headed straight for the race tower building where team principals remained.
F1’s stance so far has been that as local intelligence suggests the escalation of Houthi military activities is not targeted at the grand prix itself, and given strengthened security measures at the track, there is no reason why the race should not happen.
