Bernie Ecclestone to Stay on as Formula One Boss After Takeover: Report

Excelsior, you fathead! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Shepherd

@dukeisduke Love Shep! Three of my favorite sports are run by idiots: Eccelstone Brian France Roger Godell

There are two correct answers: 1) He's responsible for F1 turning into a morass of impossible-to-understand rules that create $3M cars and distract from the driving. He also markets the series only to "old guys with cash," in his own words. 2) He's an asshat personally, with a heaping helping of misogynistic and bigoted statements in his history.

@dal20402 Thanks, that helps.

Effectively, he is Lee Iacocca at Chrysler. Meaning: he was extremely valuable to the organization at one point in its' history (in this case, roughly the '70s through the '90s), but has significantly overstayed his welcome, and is in the process of running said organization right back into the ground with short-signed decisions designed to line his already bulging pockets to the exclusion of any other goal.

@dal20402 He also has no concept of modern social media and how to use it to promote F1

@dal20402 He is not really responsible for the rule changes, that's the FIA and the teams. Over half of the current F1 tracks and all the new ones were designed by Hermann Tilke, not sure if Bernie pushes that.Apart from Turkey (now defunct) the races have become boring. Bernie is responsible for selling the races to the highest bidder and thus putting many of the traditional tracks and even some of the more recent venues (like Austin) in a precarious position.

@dal20402 His only major sins are eliminating classic races in exchange for huge sums of money from other countries that are willing to pay up. He has also made Hermann Tilke the only designer for modern courses. The FIA and the teams are responsible for the stupid rules of today.

@dal20402 I doubt you could even buy the engine alone for $3 million. The specification of the current hybrid powertrains is a couple years old now, but they claimed they were $20 million a piece the first year they replaced the relatively simple naturally-aspirated V8s.

@TKewley At least Iacocca admitted he fudged up when he picked Eaton over Lutz.

That was two years ago, and I don't think it was the first time he brought down a government for doing his bidding as he got off scot-free. Bernie owns F1 because he has the last two testicles in Europe.