Mercedes, McLaren satisfied with Bahrain Grand Prix decision

Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn and his opposite number at McLaren Martin Whitmarsh are both happy to accept the sport's governing body's assurances that the race will be safe.

"It is very difficult for us," said Brawn. "We have to take the advice of people who have all the information that is happening. We have reassurances from the FIA that they believe we can have a safe race there, so we follow that advice.

"We are not seeing what we saw last year, for sure. We are taking all the sensible measures you can to have the best race we can have. There are a lot of positives about going there, so we don't want to lose that."

Whitmarsh emphasised that Bahrain is not the only venue on the calendar for which there are safety concerns - citing road safety in India and crime in Brazil as factors that McLaren takes into account when travel is planned.

He insists that while Bahrain remains on the calendar, McLaren will race there.

"Bahrain is on the calendar and we've had it affirmed and re-affirmed by the FIA and the commercial rights holder in the last 24 hours so as far as we are concerned, we are going there to race.

"We travel to Brazil, we travel to a whole variety of places. We are mindful of some security that we need to take in some venues that we go to. We are not always as comfortable as we would like to be in some of the venues that we raced in last year, but ultimately we don't decide that. The calendar is fixed.

"We attended a meeting yesterday and not one team voiced a concern. There was not much point in doing so."

A number of media outlets, including Finland's MTV3 and Japan Fuji TV, have decided not to send their crews to Bahrain.