Ecclestone wanted one more year

Bernie Ecclestone admits that he would have liked to have stayed on for another year as CEO of F1 but is not let down by Liberty Media's choice to oust him.

The 86 year old was replaced in January by Chase Carey when Liberty Media completed the acquisition of Formula 1. Ecclestone's long reign in F1 came to an end, with Liberty Media immediately making changes, such as allowing teams to post videos from the track during pre-season testing.

Asked if he would have made the same change as Liberty, Ecclestone replied: "Probably not. I would have asked them to work with me for a bit, wait for a year and afterwards say 'has it worked, not worked?' 'Not worked? Sorry, you'll have to leave,' or whatever.

"But different people operate companies differently, obviously. I think this is very much the way American companies operate. Let's be absolutely sensible about it: they bought the car, they wanted to drive it."

Ecclestone disagrees with the comments Carey made about how F1 business had stagnated in the last number of years: "I think people have got muddled up a bit," he said.

"These people have thought and said, and Chase has said, that I hadn't done a very good job in the last three years. I thought I had, CVC thought I had, and I managed to produce $1.5 billion-a-year income, which made their shares worth a lot of money. Maybe if I'd have done a lousy job people could have bought the shares cheaper."

Even though he is no longer the ringmaster of the sport, Ecclestone will travel to at least half of the races in 2017: "I've been asked and invited to go to most of them, so I'll have to try and sort it out," he said. "Probably at least half of them."

Fergal Walsh