Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: What made the drivers change their minds and race?

The bosses of Formula 1 and the local authorities managed to talk the drivers into racing at this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but there is a lot more work to do to convince some people in the sport that the race should be on the calendar at all.

It took four hours of meetings on Friday evening for the drivers to be persuaded they should race this weekend, after a missile attack on an oil facility nine miles from the circuit lit up the night sky on the Jeddah corniche and initially convinced many of the sport's stars that the grand prix should be called off.

As the drivers sat in a glass-walled room in the paddock, and Friday turned into Saturday, various senior figures came and went from the meeting — the team principals, F1 chairman Stefano Domenicali, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, ministers in the Saudi government.

And eventually, the drivers agreed to go ahead.

But 24 hours later, the top three men after qualifying did not exactly sound as if they had been turned into ambassadors for the race.

Should Saudi Arabia have a future in F1, Red Bull's surprise pole winner Sergio Perez and the Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were asked?

«There are some considerations we all have to make as a group and see what's best for the sport going forwards,» Perez said.

«It is definitely a discussion we should have after this race once everything calms down,» Leclerc added.

Committing to a race in Saudi Arabia was always going to be controversial, given the country's human rights record. And F1 has sought to get in front of the accusation that it was complicit in allowing the regime to «sports-wash» its global reputation by saying it had secured guarantees from the government in its contract and that it hoped to