The eyebrows elevate and, under the silvery fringe, the brow wrinkles and a cold stare reflects his impatience as Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s supreme power, gives himself about half a second to repeat my question aloud.
Eavesdropping fellow lunchtime diners in the exclusive London West End restaurant, well aware of the identity of their close neighbour, strain their ears for the familiarly low pitched delivery.
“When am I going to quit?” is the rhetorical response, with the added: “Sure, it’s been a terrible year, one of the worst of my life but, as I have told you often enough before, and nothing has changed, I am staying put.
“The only way my job in Formula One will come to an end, unless somebody with the power decrees it, is when they are carrying me away in my coffin. And then they’d better make sure the lid is nailed down.”
He does add the cautious rider: “I have always run the business the way I thought it should be organised. And it has mostly worked. The minute I can’t do that, I will quit.”
So that’s it then? “Yes,” he continues. “You have to face up to, and master, the problems as best you can and there have been plenty to test my ability to do so over the many years I’ve been in this position. It is my life. My absorbing passion. And, as I say often enough, I don’t like being beaten and I have been a winner more often than I have been a loser.\
“I have often flown by the seat of my pants with nobody but myself to turn to. Sometimes I’ve got it wrong — but mostly I’ve got it right. And Formula One, and the thousands of people in it, and the many millions of followers worldwide, have been the beneficiaries.”
On the personal front, Ecclestone, the son of a fishing trawler captain, has amassed a fortune reckoned to be in the region of £3billion, putting him in the top 25 of the richest UK residents. Who knows what further riches are legally, but secretly, stashed elsewhere? He’s not saying. Why should he?
It would be far too easy to dismiss Ecclestone as an unfathomable and not-so-likeable being in that his serious countenance and rare smile offer little that is welcoming. But that is a false impression and, when you get to know him and he relaxes in your company, he can be charm and humour personified.
Cross him, though, and you are in trouble. His mantra is: “I’m a good friend — but a bad enemy.”
His travails this year have been wickedly testing enough for a man in his prime, hence the perennial question mark over what might lie ahead for him. And, for one just turned 84, it is an unimaginable trauma, as wearying and wearing as can be. And this last few weeks it has showed, etched on his face, mainly due to the rigours of his Munich bribery trial and his regular attendance at the hearings.
The fiercely contested trial in Germany, with a ten-year jail threat if he was found guilty, overshadowed most of the season — but he was cleared. And with the retort in his chauffeur-driven limo on his way to his private jet: “I said from the beginning I was innocent. And that has now been shown to be a fact.”
The case concerned certain rights held by the German bank BayernLB and sold to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity business in the UK, for $830m, the court said. Ecclestone allegedly received £66m commission from a German banker, Gerhard Gribkowsky, as part of the deal. And Bernie was accused of giving back $44m in exchange for Gribkowsy’s assurance that that CVC, who Ecclestone represented, would secure the rights.
Financial shortcomings
Later, Gribkowsky was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for bribery and tax evasion. Ecclestone denied the bribery charges and countered that he had been blackmailed by the German financier.
As if that long drawn-out dispute, which cost him £60m, was not enough to trouble and occupy the Formula One kingpin’s attention, the failure and dropping out through financial shortcomings of two teams, Marussia and Caterham, with Bernie blamed and widely vilified, has shot to the forefront of his concerns.
And the last few weeks have been a constant source of pressure, with even his old friend and former team owner Eddie Jordan, funded substantially at the start of his career by Bernie, saying bitterly: “I am sick of the way F1 is being run at the moment.”
He said the bigger-name teams were being favoured financially over the also-rans, who desperately need an improved cash flow from the sport’s prize fund.
Bernie hits back at the rebels who are trying to force him onto the back foot with: “They are idiots. They have to stop spending and reduce their costs. Put away the begging bowls.
“It’s simple — they spend more than they’ve got.”
He adds: “The problem is there is probably too much money being distributed badly. And that’s my fault.”
A renowned paddock cynic said that trouble-torn Marussia, with 130 employees, could have existed for 18 months on the £70m price tag on the mind-boggling 57-room London mansion owned by Tamara, one of Bernie’s two daughters. He could also have cited the billion-dollar pay-off that was Bernie’s settlement when he divorced his second wife, Slavica.
Bernie’s status as the forceful figure behind Formula One’s rise is an endearing and eternal tribute to his stamina and fortitude. That coupling has never been so crucial as doubts about his ability to carry on mount up on a foundation of personal worries and internal pressure, with the name-game of his likely successor in full flow. Not that he offers any preference as to his replacement should in the unlikely event he be ousted.
But two names are at the forefront of the general consensus for one of the most glamorous but demanding overlordships in world sport. They are both men, high flyers at top teams, with bright organisational expertise in their current and respective positions.
Wedding guest
The favourite, and has been for a while, is Bernie’s firm friend Christian Horner, the gifted and personable management force behind the phenomenal success story of Red Bull and star driver Sebastian Vettel.
Horner’s kinship with Ecclestone spills over into his private life, so much so that he was the only person from F1 invited to Bernie’s third wedding to Fabiana, a Brazilian lawyer 30 years his junior, last year.
The second main contender is Toto Wolff, the Mercedes chief, who has shaped his Mercedes team as world beaters with a record-breaking run to the drivers’ title that should be clinched by Lewis Hamilton in the Abu Dhabi finale this weekend. They have already triumphed in the constructors’ championship.
The charming and astute German, fluent in several languages and a master of grand prix politics, is keeping silent on his own ambitions outside bidding for more championships. But, again, paddock gossip pinpoints him as the ideal figure to take over where Bernie might leave off.
Back in his salubrious office, with its garden view and outlook beside Hyde Park in London, and its massed ranks of souvenirs, trophies and gifts from around the world, he goes on: “I’ve got new teams falling over themselves to join us in Formula One.”
Among them, waiting in the wings for Bernie’s call, is the Haas outfit in the USA.
Once again, mindful of the money matters haunting him, he talks cash and prospects. “You and I could start a team for $30m-a-year and for a tenth place in the championship you would get $48m. Is that a problem?” he says.
Whatever happens, and the next few months will be critical in his future as the leading figure in Formula One, the memories of the man who made the sport a world entity will forever be remembered and cherished. Could he be honoured, knighted even, for his services and the immeasurable amount of money, business, reputation and recognition he has brought with absolute pride to his homeland?
When lesser men have been dubbed by royalty for only a fraction of the achievements of workaholic Bernard Charles Ecclestone, it does seem a negligence not to be forgiven. Has he ever been offered an honour that he turned down? Intriguingly, he responds: “I am not going to answer that because it is a bit like a masking donation. It is private.”
— The writer is a freelance journalist and motorsport expert
