Bernie Ecclestone
Bernard Charles Ecclestone is a British business magnate, motorsport executive and former racing driver. Widely known in journalism as the "F1 Supremo", Ecclestone founded the Formula One Group in 1987, controlling the commercial rights to Formula One until 2017.
Born in Suffolk and raised in Bexleyheath, Ecclestone began his business career trading motorcycle parts after World War II. He started racing in Formula Three in 1949, winning multiple races at Brands Hatch driving a Cooper Mk V. After purchasing two Connaught chassis in, Ecclestone entered the Monaco and British Grands Prix in Formula One as a privateer, but did not qualify at either. He then became a driver manager for Stuart Lewis-Evans and Jochen Rindt, the latter winning the World Drivers' Championship posthumously in. Ecclestone purchased Brabham in —which he operated for 15 years—leading the team to 22 victories, as well as two World Drivers' Championship titles with Nelson Piquet. He co-founded the Formula One Constructors' Association two years later, leading them through the FISA–FOCA war.
Ecclestone's control of the sport, which grew from his pioneering sale of television rights in the late-1970s, was primarily financial; under the terms of the Concorde Agreement in 1987, Ecclestone and his companies also controlled the administration, setup and logistics of each Formula One Grand Prix. He also founded International Sportsworld Communicators in 1996, controlling the commercial rights to the World Rally Championship until 2000. He placed fifth on the Sunday Times Rich List in 2002, and declined both a CBE and a knighthood from Elizabeth II. He co-owned association football club Queens Park Rangers with Flavio Briatore from 2007 to 2011, overseeing their promotion to the Premier League. He sold the Formula One Group to Liberty Media in 2017, subsequently being appointed as chairman emeritus and adviser to the board of directors until his departure in 2020.
Over his four-decade career as an executive in Formula One, Ecclestone was involved in [|several controversies]. With the birth of his son in 2020, he became one of the oldest known fathers, aged 89. In October 2023, he was convicted of tax fraud at Southwark Crown Court, and agreed to pay HM Revenue and Customs over million in back taxes and penalties; he was sentenced to 17 months in prison, suspended for two years.
Early life
Ecclestone was born on 28 October 1930 in St Peter South Elmham, a hamlet south of Bungay, Suffolk. He was the son of Sidney Ecclestone, a fisherman, and his wife Bertha Sophia. Ecclestone attended primary school in Wissett in Suffolk before the family moved to Danson Road, Bexleyheath, southeast London, in 1938. He was not evacuated to the countryside during the Second World War and remained with his family.Ecclestone left Dartford West Central Secondary School at the age of 16 to work as an assistant in the chemical laboratory at the local gasworks testing gas purity. He also studied chemistry at Woolwich Polytechnic and pursued his hobby of motorcycles.
Motorsports career
Early career
Ecclestone drove only a limited number of races, mainly at his local circuit, Brands Hatch, but achieved a number of good placings and an occasional win. He initially retired from racing following several accidents at Brands Hatch, intending to focus on his business interests.Team ownership
Ecclestone returned to racing in 1957 as manager of driver Stuart Lewis-Evans, and purchased two chassis from the disbanded Connaught Formula One team. Ecclestone entered these two at the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix in which 30 cars competed for 16 places on the grid. Drivers Bruce Kessler and Paul Emery as 20th and 21st were five seconds too slow to make the field, and complained about handling problems. Ecclestone drove the #12 car to verify the statements, and was registered with a time nearly a minute slower than his drivers, thus this has since been described as "not a serious attempt".Ecclestone also entered the British Grand Prix, but the car was raced by Jack Fairman. He continued to manage Lewis-Evans when he moved to the Vanwall team; Roy Salvadori moved on to manage the Cooper team. Lewis-Evans suffered severe burns when his engine exploded at the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix and died six days later; Ecclestone was shocked and once again retired from racing.
Ecclestone's friendship with Salvadori led to his becoming manager of driver Jochen Rindt and a partial owner of Rindt's 1970 Lotus Formula 2 team, whose other driver was Graham Hill. Rindt, on his way to the 1970 World Championship, died in a crash at the Monza circuit, though he was awarded the championship posthumously.
Brabham
During the 1971 season, Ecclestone was approached by Ron Tauranac, owner of the Brabham team, who was looking for a suitable business partner. Ecclestone made him an offer of £100,000 for the whole team, which Tauranac eventually accepted. Tauranac stayed on as designer and to run the factory, while Colin Seeley was briefly brought in against Tauranac's wishes to assist in design and management.File:Reutemann ecclestone.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Ecclestone with Carlos Reutemann at the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix
Having bought the team from Ron Tauranac for approximately $120,000 at the end of 1971, Ecclestone eventually sold it for over US$5 million to a Swiss businessman, Joachim Luhti in 1988.
Formula One executive
In parallel to his activities as team owner, Ecclestone formed the Formula One Constructors Association in 1974 with Frank Williams, Colin Chapman, Teddy Mayer, Ken Tyrrell, and Max Mosley. He became increasingly involved with his roles at FISA and the FOCA in the 1970s, in particular with negotiating the sport's television rights, in his decades-long advocacy for team control.Television rights shuffled between Ecclestone's companies, teams, and the FIA in the late 1990s, but Ecclestone emerged on top again in 1997 when he negotiated the fourth Concorde Agreement: in exchange for annual payments, he maintained the television rights. Ecclestone and his companies also controlled the administration, setup and logistics of each Grand Prix.
Also in 1978, Ecclestone hired Sid Watkins as official Formula One medical doctor. Following the crash at the 1978 Italian Grand Prix, Watkins demanded that Ecclestone provide better safety measures, which were provided at the next race. This way, Formula One began to improve safety, decreasing the number of deaths and serious injuries along the decades.
At the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, following Ayrton Senna's fatal accident but while Senna was still alive, Ecclestone inadvertently misinformed Senna's family that Senna had died. Ecclestone had used a walkie-talkie to ask Sid Watkins - who was at the crash scene - about Senna's condition. Over the static of the walkie-talkie, Ecclestone misheard Watkins' response of "His head" as "He's dead". Based on this, Ecclestone told Senna's brother Leonardo, who was attending the race, that Senna had died. Senna in fact remained biologically alive for several more hours. This misunderstanding caused a rift in the hitherto friendly relations between Ecclestone and the Senna family; although Ecclestone travelled to Sâo Paulo at the time of Senna's funeral, he did not attend the funeral itself, instead watching it on television at his hotel.
Despite heart surgery and triple coronary bypass in 1999, Ecclestone remained as energetic as always in promoting his own business interests. In the late 1990s he reduced his share in SLEC Holdings to 25%, though despite his minority share he retained complete control of the companies.
Ecclestone came under fire in October 2004 when he and British Racing Drivers' Club president Jackie Stewart were unable to come to terms regarding the future British Grand Prix, causing the race to be dropped from the 2005 provisional season calendar. Negotiations with Ecclestone to keep the race in Formula One ended in the signing of a contract on 9 December to guarantee the continuation of the British Grand Prix for the following five years. In mid-November 2004, the three banks comprising Speed Investments, which owns a 75% share in SLEC, which in turn controls Formula One – Bayerische Landesbank, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers – sued Ecclestone for more control over the sport, prompting speculation that Ecclestone might altogether lose the control he had maintained for more than 30 years.
A two-day hearing began on 23 November. After the proceedings ended the following day, Justice Andrew Park announced his intention to reserve ruling for several weeks. On 6 December 2004, Park read his verdict, stating that "In judgment it is clear that Speed's contentions are correct and should therefore make the declarations which it requests." However, Ecclestone insisted that the verdict – seen almost universally as a legal blow to his control of Formula One – would mean "nothing at all". He stated his intention to appeal against the decision. The following day, at a meeting of team bosses at Heathrow Airport in London, Ecclestone offered the teams a total of £260,000,000 over three years in return for unanimous renewal of the Concorde Agreement, which expired in 2008. Two weeks later, Gerhard Gribkowsky, a board member of Bayerische Landesbank and the chairman of SLEC, said that the banks had no intention to remove Ecclestone from his position of control.
On 25 November 2005, CVC Capital Partners announced it was to purchase both the Ecclestone shares of the Formula One Group and Bayerische Landesbank's 48% share. This left Alpha Prema owning 71.65% of the Formula One Group. Ecclestone used the proceeds of this sale to purchase a stake in this new company. On 6 December Alpha Prema acquired JP Morgan's share of SLEC to increase its ownership of Formula One to 86%; the remaining 14% was held by Lehman Brothers.
On 21 March 2006 the EU competition authorities approved the transaction subject to CVC selling Dorna, which controls the rights to MotoGP. CVC announced the completion of the transaction on 28 March. CVC acquired Lehman Brothers' share at the end of March 2006. Allsport Management SA, owned by Paddy McNally was also acquired by CVC on 30 March. On 21 July 2007, Ecclestone announced in the media that he would be open to discussing the purchase of Arsenal Football Club. As a close friend to former director of Arsenal David Dein, it was believed that the current board of the north London–based football club would prefer to sell to a British party, this after American-based investment company KSE headed by Stan Kroenke was thought to be preparing a £650 million takeover bid for Arsenal Holdings plc.
After the loss of Silverstone as the venue for the British Grand Prix in 2008, Ecclestone came under fire from several high-profile names for his handling of Formula One's revenues. Damon Hill blamed Formula One Management as a key factor in the loss of the event: "There's always been the question of the FOM fee, and ultimately that is the deciding factor. To quote Bernie, he once said: 'You can have anything you like, as long as you pay too much for it,' but we can't pay too much for something ... The problem is money goes out and away. There's a question whether that money even returns to Formula One." Flavio Briatore also criticised FOM: "Nowadays Ecclestone takes 50% of all revenues, but we are supposed to be able to reduce our costs by 50%".
Ecclestone was removed from his position as chief executive of Formula One Group on 23 January 2017, following its takeover by Liberty Media in 2016. He was appointed the honorary role of chairman emeritus and adviser to the board of directors, until his term expired in January 2020.