{"id":505834,"date":"2026-02-26T17:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/505834\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T17:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:58:14","slug":"why-ecclestone-still-has-the-power-to-make-f1-squirm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/505834\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ecclestone still has the power to make F1 squirm"},"content":{"rendered":"

You have to wonder what the so-called \u201cnew fans\u201d who have engaged with Formula 1 in the\u00a0Drive to Survive\u00a0era must make of 95-year-old Bernie Ecclestone. Or, indeed, why what he has to say is considered so important \u2013 especially when the latest batch of soundbites, as decanted into the microphones of the German broadcaster RTL and website sport.de, consist largely of equal parts rambling and stating the obvious, with a side order of pure mischief.<\/p>\n

Picking George Russell<\/a> and Mercedes<\/a> as championship favourites is hardly going out on a limb. By the same token, touting Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> as a future world champion doesn\u2019t represent a radical position, coming from someone who lives on a Brazilian coffee plantation bigger than Monaco, and who has played a tacit role in supporting Bortoleto\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

Anodyne remarks about Audi<\/a>\u2019s prospects, and those of Ferrari<\/a> and Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, would barely have merited being reported had they been uttered by anyone else. No, the real sting of it was his criticism of the new technical regulations.<\/p>\n

“There will be confusion at the start of the season because everyone has to relearn Formula 1,” he harrumphed. “And the rules certainly don’t favour Max Verstappen<\/a> and his style of racing.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s less about pure racing. But that\u2019s the direction of development: more regulations, more rules for the drivers – don\u2019t do this, don\u2019t do that. It is a drivers’ world championship and not one for engineers. Formula 1 is now competing more with Formula E.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

“Maybe the fans will like that, but I don\u2019t think so. The danger is that we lose the fans. I sincerely hope I\u2019m wrong.”<\/p>\n

\"Ecclestone <\/p>\n

Ecclestone is no longer the ringmaster of F1, but he still has the ability to apply his influence within the paddock<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Again, if it were your grandfather trotting out the better-back-then schtick, those present would merely roll their eyes and get on with their lives. But this is Bernard Charles Ecclestone, formerly the all-powerful \u2018ringmaster\u2019 of F1, so his opinions are considered well-informed enough to warrant the hold-the-front-page treatment.<\/p>\n

\u2018New\u2019 fans could be forgiven for wondering who the old man is, and why he\u2019s shaking his fist at that cloud, but Bernie used to speak in public so rarely that on those occasions when he was sighted in the wild, a stampede would break out to be first to get a Dictaphone under his nose. Pole position was important because, then as now, Bernie was inclined to speak only in a conspiratorial sotto voce.<\/p>\n

When Ecclestone\u2019s power was at its peak, you couldn\u2019t simply call his office asking for comment. No, you sent a begging request and sat by the phone.<\/p>\n

In the paddock, Ecclestone\u2019s motorhome \u2013 a squat blue slab with blacked-out windows \u2013 emphasised the potent sense of unavailability and mystique<\/p>\n

A magazine this author worked for once published something which incurred his displeasure. Out of the blue the phone rang one day and the deputy editor picked up: \u201cHello. Eh? Oh, hello Bernie. Eh? OK. Bye\u2026\u201d after some sharp words came down the line.<\/p>\n

In the paddock, Ecclestone\u2019s motorhome \u2013 a squat blue slab with blacked-out windows \u2013 emphasised the potent sense of unavailability and mystique, never more so than in Monaco, where it presided over the tiny \u2018town square\u2019 in the paddock which was the only free space not occupied by the ever more ludicrously large ziggurats housing the teams. There, a veritable conga line of supplicants gathered in the hope that the doors would slide open and they would be whisked into the inner sanctum.<\/p>\n

Even before Bernie made his land-grab for the commercial rights in the 1980s, he was the object of myth-making. There are those who connect him to the Great Train Robbery, chiefly because he gave getaway driver Roy \u2018The Weasel\u2019 James a job making trophies when James got out of jail. Ecclestone has always laughed it off while quietly enjoying being the object of such speculation.<\/p>\n

\"Ecclesstone's <\/p>\n

Ecclesstone’s way of running F1 clashed with Liberty Media’s plans, so his time in the top job was always limited once the takeover was complete<\/p>\n

Photo by: Simon Galloway \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

There are other stories, less fantastical but which speak to the mix of audacity, freewheeling enterprise and clinical execution which has defined his life in commerce: that his reputation as a car salesman was such that others would come from all over the country to his showroom in the hope of besting him in a deal. At some point on the way home they would inevitably telephone to ascertain what they had actually bought.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s said that Bernie once brokered the sale of a private aircraft, earning himself a considerable profit in the process, before he had even bought and taken delivery of it in the first place. At some point in his life the accumulation of wealth became almost an irrelevance to him \u2013 the game, the dance, was all that mattered. Hence his latter-day acts of serial legerdemain in which he sold the commercial rights to a procession of buyers while still remaining in charge.<\/p>\n

In Liberty Media, though, the irresistible force met an immovable object. Handshake deals and the whole smoke-and-mirrors routine were never going to cut it with an American-based corporation rooted in transparency, marching to a routine of quarterly earnings calls. Ecclestone quickly had the proverbial gold watch clamped on his wrist before being escorted from the premises, though Liberty described his position as \u201cchairman emeritus\u201d.<\/p>\n

With this corporate fig leaf, one is inevitably reminded of when Rupert Murdoch fired Frank Giles as editor of the Sunday Times following the Hitler Diaries fiasco. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be \u2018editor emeritus\u2019,\u201d Murdoch reportedly drawled. \u201cThat\u2019s \u2018e\u2019 as in \u2018ex\u2019, and \u2018meritus\u2019 because you bloody deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberty Media has done much to expunge Ecclestone\u2019s legacy ever since, even going so far as to change the F1 logo. But in the neat echelon of the motorhomes and trucks there is a persistent reminder of\u00a0temps perdu, when Bernie insisted that the paddock and its outlying territories be spick and span, just as the cars and motorcycles in his showrooms were parked\u00a0just so\u00a0and immaculately polished.<\/p>\n

There are many still in F1 who built their fortunes as Ecclestone made his. But there\u2019s also no doubt the category is a healthier place for his absence: commercially, he had an enormous blind spot for anything which did not involve cash up front, hence his famous disdain for social media and anyone who couldn\u2019t afford a Rolex. Liberty\u2019s embrace of those demographics has grown the audience as well as the sponsor portfolio.<\/p>\n

\"Many <\/p>\n

Many kept the former F1 supremo as an ally in recent years<\/p>\n

Photo by: Mark Sutton \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

And while you might agree with Bernie\u2019s sentiments regarding the technical direction of \u2018the show\u2019, let\u2019s not forget that on his watch F1 was a category of haves and have-nots in which almost half the grid was beggared in service of keeping the wealthier ones on side.<\/p>\n

Now, vexatiously and disobligingly as far as the current commercial rights holder is concerned, Ecclestone keeps cropping up like Banquo\u2019s ghost, mischievously stirring the pot. Last year\u2019s brief \u201cbring back V10s\u201d craze came at his instigation, when then Red Bull team principal Christian Horner popped him on speakerphone during a pre-season F1 Commission meeting.<\/p>\n

Likewise his claim regarding who knew what and when in the fall-out of Nelson Piquet Jr\u2019s deliberate crash during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix has become the subject of an embarrassing ongoing court case.<\/p>\n

Everything else in the interview was just noise: Bernie wanted to roll a grenade under F1\u2019s door, and he did<\/p>\n

This latest intervention, poking at what is widely known to be a sore point for F1, is studiedly deliberate. Everything else in the interview was just noise: Bernie wanted to roll a grenade under F1\u2019s door, and he did. Because he could.<\/p>\n

He used to be practically impossible to get hold of but there\u2019s no shutting him up now. Perhaps that\u2019s because, like any good Rolex owner, he\u2019s got time on his hands\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Ecclestone's <\/p>\n

Ecclestone’s comments over F1’s new rules were pointed as per<\/p>\n

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You have to wonder what the so-called \u201cnew fans\u201d who have engaged with Formula 1 in the\u00a0Drive to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85,253980],"class_list":["post-505834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-why-ecclestone-still-has-the-power-to-make-f1-squirm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}