The Grand Prix in Bahrain is over and while the troubles will no doubt continue, and I will keep an eye on them as I have for the last 15 months, it is time for F1 to move on. All we can do is to hope that things will improve and that the Grand Prix – or indeed any Grand Prix – will not be held in such conditions again. It is not for the sport to be involved in the politics of a nation. We were last weekend and I am not sure what good came of it. We went to Bahrain because the race was there, even if we did not think it was a good idea to go, and if some of us managed to provide a more balanced picture to the world, then that is something positive. It is not much, but at least we went away feeling that we had done something of value and were not just being used as propaganda tools by both sides… It was an experience but if we wanted to be political reporters we would have chosen that path. Just because we are sports reporters does not mean we are incapable of understanding such things, we have simply chosen to do what we want to do.

In the F1 world, the Bahrain situation drowned out all other stories. The most important story for F1 was that Bernie Ecclestone announced that the French Grand Prix will be back on the calendar in 2013. It will be alternating with another race, but as far as I can understand it is not yet decided which race that will be. The original plan was for it to be Belgium, but there seem to be other problems going on there and the latest suggest I have heard is that it could be with one of the Spanish races. If that is the case Belgium will probably disappear completely, which would be a shame. The local politicians in Wallonia need to get themselves sorted out quickly if they want to have a guaranteed future for the race at Spa.

The deal for the French GP was done at a meeting in London on the Tuesday before Bahrain between Ecclestone and France’s Sports Minister, David Douillet. The plan is for the race to be held in late August/Early September, and I believe that it is a 10-year deal, with France getting 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. Thus the races on that date in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 are available and will go to the first bidder with the right package.

The race will be at Paul Ricard.

The most exciting thing about this story was that it was done against the background of a fast-approaching election. It was essential for the current government to get a deal in place before the election is finished as no new government is likely to address the question of F1 racing in the short, or even medium term. The current deal involves no government money but the work done by Prime Minister François Fillon’s staff has been essential in getting the deal done.

The first round of the voting took place on Sunday and the result was that François Hollande of the Parti Socialiste won 28.63 percent of the votes (10.2 million), while President Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) polled 27.18 percent (9.7 million). These two will now go on to the second round of voting in a fortnight.

In the next two weeks the supporters of Marine Le Pen (Front National), who scored 17.9 percent (6.4 million), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Front De Gauche) who polled 11.1 percent (3.9 million) and François Bayrou (Mouvement Démocrate) who scored 9.1 percent (3.2 million) will have to decide whether to vote for Hollande or Sarkozy.

This means that the election could still go either way.