Ecclestone: “Nothing has changed” since Liberty deal
Bernie Ecclestone insists that “nothing has changed” since Liberty began its purchase of the F1 business – and stresses that new chairman Chase Carey is still observing and not making any decisions.
Photo by: XPB Images
Carey, who took over from his low profile predecessor Peter Brabeck-Letmathe when the Liberty deal was announced, recently attended an F1 Strategy Group meeting.
However, Ecclestone says that the American won’t make any calls about the sport’s future until the purchase is fully completed, which is currently scheduled to be early next year.
“At the moment nothing’s changed,” Ecclestone told Motorsport.com.
“The shareholders have changed, but nothing else has changed.
“The position with Liberty at the moment is they are 10 per cent shareholder of the company. Chase is chairman of the company, the same as Peter Brabeck was. Has he got more involved than Peter? Probably not. He’s trying to find out a little bit more about the company he bought.
“He bought a product. He’s looking to see what we’ve bought, and what can we do when we get control, which will be in another few months. What should we be doing?
“I’m sure when they get their feet under the desk, and they have control of the company, then they will probably have a good look. In the mean time they have enough time to see what is wrong or what they think is wrong, and may well be wrong, and see how they’re going to put it right.”
Ecclestone conceded that one major request from Liberty has emerged.
“They’d like to have more races in America. We’d like to have better television there, and more races in America, we’d be happy with. Now we’ve got to see how we’re going to do that.”
Asked if Liberty could actually help him to push through changes he’s always wanted to make he said: “Yeah, there are lots of bits of pieces that maybe we can sort out.”
Meanwhile Ecclestone conceded that his own future is not yet clear, even though it’s been announced that he will stay on for at least three years.
“We don’t know. The three years is a bit of a nonsense, so we’ll see what happens. I’m feeling quite fit, I’m not feeling that I’m going to die shortly, but these things happen. You don’t very often plan those things.”
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
How an F1 underachiever became a Japanese political player
Haas F1 boss says Magnussen's Chinese GP penalty not "justifiable"
How rain and strategy spelled disaster for Ferrari in WEC Imola 6 Hours
China F1 upgrades in full, from tweaked headrests to new floors
Wolff: Mercedes can't just keep living off F1 "bright spots"
Chinese Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2024
Why Verstappen's China F1 win was a sideshow to the real battle
How the pursuit of marginal F1 gains caused Sauber's pitstop stumbles
The short-term pain that hides a very real Williams improvement
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments