I Like Bernie but…

I'll start with a blatant outpouring for sympathy. For the majority of the summer I've been hisking and wheezing with a chest infection which laid me out for the count. Some days were like a scene from the film The Exorcist. My temperature soured and I rattled like a wonky drug cabinet. Cough remedies, cold remedies, anti-histamines, asthma inhalers - I was like a legalised rock God on a bender and in the end I reverted to the medicine of my ancestors and reached for the Scotch (not single Malt Dr Corness you'll be pleased to hear). Maybe that last self-prescription was one too far as with a raging temperature toboot I had one of those surreal semi-awake, middle of the night phenomena. Second only to when I had raging temperature of 105c with chickenpox and hallucinated I was the actress Maureen Lipman, this was a scary moment because I sat bolt upright and decided I liked Bernie Ecclestone. Told you it was scary.

When talking about Bernie you find sentences become laced with buts. Bernie is dynamic but, he's helped Formula One grow but, I admire Bernie but, Bernie's ruined F1 but…

Love him or hate it it's often been said Bernie is Formula One and whilst it looks like rhetoric in print when you sit down and think about there's certainly a grain of truth. The man who said himself he has to know ever slightest detail in the paddock down to the colour of the toilet rolls may not be the heart of Formula One buts he's certainly the pacemaker.

I am like any regular Formula One fan. I don't know Bernie (perhaps I should call him Mr Ecclestone then), never met the man and am too young to have witnessed his rise to F1 supremo first hand. Like everyone else what I know of Mr E is what we have all read, mostly conjecture with the odd exclusive interview which rarely enlightens us further than the attitude of the writer.

When I was studying my Masters part of my assessment was five essays. One essay question was to study the development of a sporting governing body. Meaty stuff, I thought, the FISA vs FOCA war, the rise of Bernie Ecclestone and the standing of the FIA today. I sat down with my pen, ever expanding library and years worth of press cuttings. What I found was I had the skeleton of the story but not the meat on the bones. Being a sociological study my tutors could rip into an essay at a rate of knots - they like their facts dissected. Despite getting a good mark for that essay I realised as I read the marking sheet just how little explanation I could give to the facts I presented and I become more engrossed in the raise of Bernie Ecclestone.

Here we have a man born into unexceptional circumstances. Born in 1931, the son of a trawlerman young, Ecclestone had neither the social connections or educational benefits to catapult him to the heights of the Formula One heirarchy. As he says himself he is at heart a wheeler dealer who worked his way into motorsports after dealing in motorbikes and cars, as well as side lines in property development. He had an attempt at racing himself but he soon found his strengths laid in management as befitting his entrepreneurial streak, managing driver's such as Jochen Rindt. Still nothing jumps out of this CV as pointing to a person who will become the most influential figure in the Formula One realm.

In 1964, Andrew Ferguson the manager of the Lotus F1 team founded the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA) which represented the concerns of the ever growing number of kit-car teams. FOCA soon established itself as an influential body securing regular meetings with the FIA sports representatives. In 1971 Ecclestone bought the struggling Brabham team and the scene is set for him to enter FOCA. Then in short, Bernie gets elected FOCA President, Bernie fights with the FISA, Bernie gets television and commercial rights, Bernie is made FIA Vice President, Bernie makes lots of money, Bernie seamlessly rides storm waves, Bernie is Formula One. Hang on a minute is anything in life that simple? That's what my tutors scribbled all over my essay. Surely Ecclestone didn't 'just' acquire something as significant as television rights. Well no, but as with so much Formula One business behind closed doors we rarely hear the full story of who it is that backs down and why.

Take for instance Ecclestone's climb to the Presidency of FOCA - it is remembered in very different ways. In the early 1970s Formula One was still a haphazard business. Teams individually negotiated race start fees etc, many team bosses never bothered to follow up these monies having enough on their plates already. In 1990 Bernie reminisced on those early days when he says he planned to do nothing more than race his newly acquired Brabham team yet 'people' kept asking if he'd mind doing this and that for them and bless his generous soul he did. As he said then it was the 'do you mind' that got him to his high ranking power. A case of greatness being thrust upon him then? But hang on, seven years later and someone remembers it a different way…

- Why do I write 'someone'? Well the F1 insider didn't want to be named for fear of upsetting Mr E but he remembers it quite differently. He remembers that time of disorganisation well but recalls Ecclestone approaching people and offering to organize all those loose ends on their behalf. I love it when you get two sides of a story and come out with a triangle. Either way whether intentional or unwitting, Ecclestone stepping into the organisational breach of this rapidly commercialising sport ensured he soon tied up the commercial aspects of the sport. He was the man who negotiated with the circuit owners for start fees, he was the one who developed the powerful commercial contacts.

In the 1970s up against FISA and their president Jean-Marie Balestre, Formula One entered its most political time to date to the point of near implosion. The FOCA-FISA war is well documented else where and concludes with the formation of the Concorde Agreement, another behind closed doors number. But it was in this time Ecclestone acquired the television and commercial rights to Formula One, whilst FISA was recognised as the supreme technical and sporting rule maker for the sport. There is a school of thought that believes the FISA representatives were so focused on control of the sporting regulations that it overlooked the future importance television rights would have. Mmm, I can't quite buy that, especially given the grasp commercial sponsorship had on the sport by that time. Of course the television rights were negotiated once more in recent years when…Mr Ecclestone got them for 100 years. Now proven to be huge income why were the FIA happy to keep such a small cut of the television cake? When writing that essay I looked at all sorts of figures from the early 90s, most of which were nothing more than conjecture. The teams got 14% of F1 revenue and the other 86% was split up between the FIA, Ecclestone and Allsport…supposedly.

Of course, Ecclestone doesn't just collect from these agreements. When he started to organise the travel arrangements and commercial aspects he was clever enough to set up companies to carry out such services. When he sold Brabham in 1988 he remained President of FOCA. I have to admit this amuses me. No longer a team owner himself he still remains head of their organisation whilst taking up the swiftly created 'Vice President in Charge of Promotional Affairs' at the FIA. Talk about striding two camps. It was at this time Ron Dennis raised a brief challenge to Ecclestone's FOCA Presidency but decided not to challenge in the end - why not? Someone tell me please. Has Ecclestone really been unstoppable throughout?

And so Ecclestone the F1 supremo was created, not shrouded in mystery but protected by a hazy mist at least. So why did I wake in the middle of the night deciding I might just like him if we met? Well, I was considering those pieces of writing I had read on the man in question. 'Exclusive' interviews that delved all of a centimetre under the surface and ended with a nauseating glorification of the great man and how thankful we should be. The hard hitting journalism with a bitter hard edge. The tabloid pages with their never ending fascination that a short, rich man marries a tall, beautiful ex-model. From Angel to Devil we'll never know him. I have no doubt he is one of those figures who will be anaylsed and criticised yet we'll never know what truly drives him.

Call it girly intuition but there's just something that tells me I'd like him if we met over a cup of tea. Would I like to grill him? (not literally of course), well no. He's been around too long and developed the protective shell far too well for any journalist to probe him. He'll collaborate on a biography one day and it will be as precision perfect as his business life. I'd rather put a plate of biscuits in front of him - rich tea, digestives, custard creams and bourbons - and see which he chooses. Maybe it's the fact we're both 5ft3 and I was asked to leave a paddock for being 'too short and too plain' and I like the idea that the smart arse that said that to me is in the hands of another 5ft3er. Maybe it's because I'm basically laid back (bordering on lazy) so appreciate the energy it must take to have megalomania tendencies.

Despite his multi-millionaire status and lifestyle there is an air around Mr E that always makes me think, 'I bet he still appreciates a good fish supper'. After his experience of 'how not to contribute to a political party' (out in paperback this Christmas) many people crowed that he would never get a knighthood now. Well we may never see Sir Bernie but I get the feeling he doesn't care. Over our cup of tea I wouldn't be afraid to talk about his 'humble' beginnings - a topic you would not go near with certain motor racing people.

He has sewn up Formula One thanks to others readily passing the threads. I neither like nor appreciate many of his innovations whilst happily lapping up those I do.

And so what have we learnt today?

Never mix cold remedies and Scotch.

© Rebecca Hobbs

(c)RH PR 2007