Bernie Ecclestone

Bernie Ecclestone attempted to qualify for a single World Championship event. He was in a Connaught-Alta, one of a fleet of three entered by himself. He finished qualifying 265.2 seconds off the pace, and his two team-mates failed to qualify as well.

He is, however, the most important single person in Grand Prix history. He took charge of Motor Racing Developments in 1972, from Ron Tauranac. He was the team principal for Nelson Piquet's two drivers' titles, but he'd lost interest by the time Brabham missed the deadline to enter the 1988 World Championship.

Into the governance of the sport he went, and he modernised it, and quickly controlled Formula One. He is now the leader of a billion-dollar industry. He is a divisive figure, but he's not done badly for someone who was four minutes off the pace on a Saturday in Monaco.

 

[cider_and_toast]

And don't for crying out loud call it Scotch !!!

 

[Andyoak]

I'm partial to a shot of Paddy's... I got expelled for driving too much whisky

...and don't ask me about Southern Comfort

 

[FB]

If any of you really want Bernie standing in your living room this company will make cut out figures to order.

Cut Out Figures - The Image Group Manchester

 

[teabagyokel]

Could tape it to a revolving door in an office or hotel somewhere.

 

[Greenlantern101]

 

[Rutherford]

I don't understand the loathing towards Ecclestone.
He's a great archaic business and a representative of an era, when he was a team boss, most fans of the sport cherish.

 

[teabagyokel]

My impression is that - while there are many fans of Lotus, Williams, Ferrari or one or the other McLaren drivers - there are fewer Brabham fans.
I also believe they tend to buy into the Sir Jack era much more than the Ecclestone one. I suspect that Brabham fans would (rightly) blame him for their eventual sinking, caused in part by their 'sabbatical' in 1988 when Ecclestone had the job as promoter in his sights.
It also doesn't help that he's evasive, secretive and plotting, nor that he seems to profit personally and enormously when those who are actually delivering 'his' product are bringing in shite drivers because they're scrabbling around for money.
He is also very comfortable in the company of authoritarian dictators and corrupt enough that someone went to prison for receiving a bribe from him (he paid his way out of it).
I'd also add that he is not the sole architect of modern F1, but that he very skillfully took credit for a professionalisation that happened in every sport at the same time.

 

[vintly]

I don't understand the loathing towards Ecclestone.

A complete one-off without whom none of this would have been possible. I love him, warts and all. Doesn't stop me wanting him stuffed though, and I'd probably not have him round to tea, or to meet my daughter.

 

[cider_and_toast]

without whom none of this would have been possible.

Sorry, I disagree with that. If it wasn't dear old Bernie it would have been someone else. All he did was work out that there was a lack of organisation in making money.

Since then it's only got worse.

 

[vintly]

No doubt someone else could have made a good fist of it, maybe would have done a better job than Bernie in some respects, or many respects - or maybe not.

As for 'since then it's only got worse', worse than what? A better alternative? Someone else? Well there hasn't been one! There's only been Bernie for the last few decades so it hasn't got better or worse, just more Berniefied. The potential 'someone else' might have killed the whole thing. At least it's been interesting.

I appreciate why many don't like Bernie but that doesn't make him bad at what he does. I hated my maths teacher with a passion but it was the only 'A' I got.

 

[FB]

The alternative to Bernie was F1 organised and run by Jean-Marie Balestre is a vision too horrific to contemplate.

I think Bernie has probably carried on too long but then he managed to control the loonies at the head of the various teams who had no other objective than getting the best for themselves. Ron Dennis, Frank Williams,VJ Malay, Peter Sauber, etc, and all the historic team principals, had no interest in F1 other than their own.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Don't you think Balestre and Ecclestone created each others legends?

Ecclestone engineered a fight on similar grounds to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Anyway, the real damage was done when Ecclestone was allowed to sell something he didn't really own to a hedge fund.

 

[teabagyokel]

Ron Dennis, Frank Williams,VJ Malay, Peter Sauber, etc, and all the historic team principals, had no interest in F1 other than their own.

I think, however, those gentlemen genuinely care about their teams, whereas Ecclestone deliberately sunk his.

The modernisation and professionalisation would have happened anyway. It was from the same trend as the Premier League, Super League, open rugby union, the 'Dream Team' in the Olympic basketball, Sepp Blatter, Twenty20 cricket and so on...

Whoever it was would probably have been a shit, but that doesn't imply we should be grateful for the shit we have.

 

[FB]

Bernie has done quite a lot to keep many teams in F1, even paying the operating costs for some out of his own pocket. Williams, on more than one occasion, were bailed out by FOM to stop them going under.

Bernie is no saint but I don't think there are many people with the ability to control all the egos in the F1 pit lane in the way that he has. We've seen some of the occasions where the teams have tried to do things "for the benefit of the sport" and it's been a disaster. F1 needs a dictator to stop all the vested interests sinking the sport. What it now needs is a new dictator.

 

[gethinceri]

I could suggest a recently retired driver who, I'm sure, would do a lovely job!

 

[Titch]

gethinceri are you suggesting the lovely boy is a dictator. Shame on you.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Isn't Bernie Ecclestone bailing teams out financially a bit like Dick Turpin donating money to a struggling Stage Coach company.

When you say he used his own money, remember where that came from in the first place.

 

[Incubus]

And most omportantly F1 produced some perfectly good racing before he ever came into the scene.

There might be more of it that's available on TV but you could say of any other sport since the late-seventies period. Bernie can hardly take any credit for the onset of what we call today the age of media saturation.

 

[Rutherford]

And most omportantly F1 produced some perfectly good racing before he ever came into the scene.

Did he order the teams to develop cars which make it more difficult to overtake?
Let me answer that for you; no.

Ecclestone has made some poor decisions but overall his decisions have contributed to the sport. Otherwise he wouldn't have been backed by the teams for all this time. He is the factor that unites this sport by taking steps he deems necessary to complete the job; not every decision can fulfill every teams request.

 

[Incubus]

Did he order the teams to develop cars which make it more difficult to overtake?
Let me answer that for you; no.

--------------------------


Whoever said he did? And what is your point there? F1 cars finding it progressively more difficult to follow each other's at close quarters has been an inevitable consequence of increased downforce levels and shortening of braking distances. F1 certainly didn't need Bernie to be confronted with that problem. Although he certainly cobtributed towards worsening the problem through taking F1 tinto the Mickey Mouse circuits a la Hungaroring, Jerez and the likes that began began becoming the norm for what was expected of a new track on the calendar, and he was certaainly the main force into bringing those races into the calendar.

"Uniting" teams? You've gotta be kidding. He came close to causing the entire paddock into pushing the self-destruct button in the early eighties in the midst of the FISA/FOCA wars and eastablshing open warfare between the two sides, culminating in the deletion of the 1980 Spanish GP from official results, a boycott of the 1982 San Marino GP from the FOCA teams, the very real threat of a breakaway series and the farce that became the entire 1981 season with basically every single team running clearly illegal cars as a result of the impossibily of measuring the ride-height in motion of his Brabham cars.

And that' s before you even mention what has quite frankly become the extortionate business that purchasing an F1 admission ticket to attend a Grand Prix has become under his management - cheaper to get get a pass for the entire Le Mans week than a ticket to attend a qualifying saturday general admission at a GP.

So. Under Mernie, who looks after the commercial side of F1, tickets have become outrageously expensive not to say barely affordable. F1 TV coverage is no longer entirely free-to-air and will soon be on an exclusively cable TV viewing basis. Traditional and historical venues are being priced out in favour of far-flung places ever further away from F1' s traditional european heartlands on bland and anonymous tracks where the only locals that attend are those official and dignitaries seeking to entertain their international corporate partners in some hospitality area or other.

Ah yes! Where would F1 be without Bernie aye?...