At the age of 87 Bernie Ecclestone still seems to be having trouble coming to terms with the fact that Formula 1 is no longer his train set and with a number of tame media people, feeding off the connection, he is able to continue to get stories in the newspapers and, the media being as it is these days, these stories are copied and so he can get whatever he wants into the public domain.
This week he has been going on about Ferrari starting a new championship, which is impossible of course because of the 100-year deal between the FIA and the Formula One group, which means that any new series could not be a World Championship, which means that no-one is going to be interested. For the FIA to break the deal with Formula One group would be possible but the cost of a settlement is unthinkable given the length of the deal and the lucrative nature of the sport.
Bernie knows this and is clearly doing it simply to stir up trouble, just as talking openly about a race in Hanoi is irritating to Liberty Media, who are in the process of doing a deal and want to keep things under wraps until the contracts are signed. It is now certain that F1 will go to Vietnam and that it will be a government-funded race. One can argue that Vietnam has no history in racing, but the reality is that it does not matter much. A race in Vietnam would act as another race to help boost interest in F1 in China.
Bernie knows this and is clearly doing it simply to stir up trouble, just as talking openly about a race in Hanoi is irritating to Liberty Media, who are in the process of doing a deal and want to keep things under wraps until the contracts are signed. It is now certain that F1 will go to Vietnam and that it will be a government-funded race. One can argue that Vietnam has no history in racing, but the reality is that it does not matter much. A race in Vietnam would act as another race to help boost interest in F1 in China.
The goal is to spread F1 around the world in such a way as to spread the coverage in order to create strong TV packages in the different time zones, adding a race in Hanoi, who help to create a proper Asian zone with China, Singapore and Japan. A second race in China would be useful with Macau being the obvious place to do a street race, in the new parts of the city, where reclaimed land means that there is space to do it. This is also now linked to Hong Kong and its international by a vast bridge and so there is plenty of scope of spectators to drive over for the race itself.
Not all of Bernie's utterances are designed to disrupt, however. Some may be designed to draw attention away from things that he does not want to see in the public domain and, as every magician knows, misdirection is central to the art of magic. So having the audience focussed on a breakaway series and a race in Vietnam, or the halo, or whatever, might be useful because it stops the media focus switching to other questions, such as: what is going on with Bernie at the moment?
At 87 most people are busy in their gardens, but Mr E is rumoured to being kept busy by the HM Revenue & Customs, having been questioned by HMRC at a police station in London, under caution. This is a process in Britain in which someone suspected of having committed an offence may be interviewed under caution before a decision is taken whether or not to prosecute.
There is no suggestion that Ecclestone has broken the law but one can volunteer to answer questions so that investigators can gather evidence which would otherwise be difficult to obtain, discover whether there are further lines of inquiry and give the interviewee the opportunity to answer allegations and give their own account of events.
The question that HMRC is trying to answer is whether or not tax should have been paid on profits made during the sale of the Formula 1 shares by the Ecclestone family's Bambino Trust. HMRC ruled in 2008 that the Bambino Trust had not breached any rules but in 2014 the case was revived with investigators claiming that they had been misled and in 2015 Ecclestone was reported to have been issued with a breathtaking tax bill of $1.43 billion. He filed various lawsuits to block the bill.
No-one involved is keen to speed about the dispute in public but it has been reported that Ecclestone's daughter Tamara was also questioned. There is no suggestion that the law has been broken but if the investigators decided that a case could be made, it will be presented to the Crown Prosecution Service. In October last year Ecclestone relocated to Switzerland.
The question that HMRC is trying to answer is whether or not tax should have been paid on profits made during the sale of the Formula 1 shares by the Ecclestone family's Bambino Trust. HMRC ruled in 2008 that the Bambino Trust had not breached any rules but in 2014 the case was revived with investigators claiming that they had been misled and in 2015 Ecclestone was reported to have been issued with a breathtaking tax bill of $1.43 billion. He filed various lawsuits to block the bill.
No-one involved is keen to speed about the dispute in public but it has been reported that Ecclestone's daughter Tamara was also questioned. There is no suggestion that the law has been broken but if the investigators decided that a case could be made, it will be presented to the Crown Prosecution Service. In October last year Ecclestone relocated to Switzerland.
Source: JSBM
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