Formula One Chief-Executive, Bernie Ecclestone, has revealed that he was baffled by the confrontational stance that the teams adopted as they threatened to breakaway and set-up a rival series.
Although peace has been restored throughout Formula One, with the ratification of the new Concorde Agreement, Ecclestone has confessed that he is still unsure as to why tensions arose in the first place.
He also questioned the reasons behind FOTA’s stance, claiming that current team bosses were generally too inexperienced to be seeking more power within the sport.
“I was just telling someone the other day that most of them in Formula 1 are a bit new,” Ecclestone said an interview with Singapore’s Today newspaper.
“They haven’t served an apprenticeship. They just don’t know what we had to go through to build things up in the beginning to what they are today. They want to take whatever they can as much as they can and disappear. A couple of them, I think, maybe thought they would like to do something else and be in charge of something.
“They are not even in charge of anything they are now doing anyway, so how they think they could be in charge of something as big as F1, I don’t know. Anyway, it is their opinion.”
Ecclestone also said that plans for a breakaway series were nothing more than a threat and that it would have been foolish for the teams to leave such an established brand as Formula 1.
“This business is built now and it is easier to do what we are doing rather than start something again,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to start a series in opposition to Formula 1, for sure.
“There is no real reason for it; there is no logic in it. Just as I said to people, those who wanted to break away must have been carried away. The trouble is they are more the corporate types. This isn’t a corporate business, it is an entrepreneur business.”
Furthermore, the F1-supremo also claimed that if the sport had collapsed due to the political wranglings of this season, then he would have refused to rebuild it.
“There wouldn’t be any point in staying if it collapses, would it?” he said. “I probably think it’s not worth the effort rebuilding it. I’ve got enough energy to do many, many other things and that is what I would be doing.”
