Bernie Ecclestone has attacked seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who is asking the F1 boss to lose his "platform" so he can speak freely.
Bernie Ecclestone has attacked seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who is calling on the F1 boss to lose his "platform" so he can speak freely.
The 91-year-old said that Hamilton's moralism is a "complete load of garbage" and that the suggestion that he is too old to have a meaningful opinion is "terribly rude."
Some, however, were irritated not only because Ecclestone tried to explain Nelson Piquet's use of the word "nigger," but also because he defended Russian President Vladimir Putin over the conflict in Ukraine.
"Yes, maybe I'm not sensitive enough," Ecclestone told his friend Roger Benoit, the veteran correspondent for the Swiss newspaper Blick, on Saturday.
"I see many things differently, and I say them because I have been asked very nicely. But I stand by one statement - Putin has always been fair to Formula 1. And I can't say that about all the promoters," he continued.
As for Hamilton's rebuke, Ecclestone advised the Mercedes driver to think more carefully the next time he launches an attack. "Lewis has forgotten a lot," he fired back.
"When Mercedes didn't pay what he asked for, I immediately said I would pay the difference. Because Formula 1 needs a person of color, a Chinese and a woman," the veteran concluded.