New F1 owners put Ecclestone in his place

Former ringmaster on the sidelines as circuit roars into Azerbaijan

So maybe we’re not such a s--hole, after all.

One year after Bernie Ecclestone made his infamous remark, the view held by Formula One’s new owners stands in stark contrast, to say the least.

Remember? F1’s longtime ringmaster made headlines 12 months ago after leaving Montreal and arriving in Azerbaijan, which was preparing to host its first Grand Prix.

Touring the shiny, new facilities in Baku, Ecclestone remarked to reporters that, in comparison, the place he’d just left in North America was a bit of a, well, you know.

Now, it wasn’t clear whether Ecclestone’s toilet talk was in reference to Montreal in general or Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in particular — probably both — but we got the picture, and it wasn’t pretty. But, boy, what a difference a year makes.

This weekend, F1 returns to Azerbaijan — but this time with Ecclestone relegated to the sidelines, his relevance and stature reduced to something more befitting his 5-foot-2 frame.

Nominally, Ecclestone, 86, holds an advisory role under the new ownership — U.S. entertainment and communications giant Liberty Media — but even he has acknowledged the bosses there aren’t much interested in his input.

What they are interested in is growing Grand Prix events around the world into weeklong festivals — featuring food, music and exhibits — that spill beyond the racetrack and onto the streets and terrasses of host cities.

If that sounds a lot like what Montreal already is doing to a large extent, well, that’s because it is. No wonder Ecclestone’s successor sounded so enthusiastic when I caught up with him during this month’s Canadian Grand Prix.

“Great fans, great setting,” Formula One Group CEO Chase Carey said on the occasion of his first visit to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and the 50th anniversary of Grand Prix racing in this country.

“Montreal is such a great city, so well-suited to our sport — a sport, you know, full of glamour and mystique.

“The fact that it’s been 50 years speaks for itself. It’s a great partnership. There aren’t a lot of places that are celebrating a 50th anniversary.

“We love the fact that it’s here,” he said of the Île Notre-Dame venue, a métro stop away from downtown. “We want that connection to a city.

“We want these races to be events that capture a city for a week. When you go to a city, you

want everyone in that city to know it’s the week that the Grand Prix is in town.” Refreshing, no?

You’d think Carey and Ecclestone had visited different planets, never mind cities.

And isn’t it funny that the only Grand Prix I can recall Liberty Media criticizing publicly is — you guessed it — the one held in Azerbaijan? This was in March, in a speech at a banking conference in Florida in which Liberty CEO Greg Maffei launched a broadside at Ecclestone’s moneygrabbing ways. “I think it’s our job to do far more to help the promoters to be successful,” Maffei was quoted as saying. “Frankly, Bernie’s attitude was, ‘How much can I extract from them?’

“I heard him call them the victims — ‘How much can I extract, how much up front?’

“So we end up with races in places like Baku in Azerbaijan, where they paid us a big race fee, but it does nothing to build the long-term brand and health of the business.”

In response, the local race promoter called the comments “ignorant.”

This is not likely to end well. Meanwhile, Liberty Media has made it clear it wants to strengthen F1’s hold on traditional racing venues while expanding to new markets where there is a perceived potential for growth, such as adding a second U.S. Grand Prix — maybe in New York or Las Vegas.

The return of France and Germany on the provisional 2018 calendar, released this week, suggests the new owners are less willing than their predecessor to abandon places where F1 has held a historically significant presence. Next year’s 21 stops seem to be the maximum that teams and drivers are willing to accept. Canada is on there in its usual slot, June 10, while Azerbaijan moves to April 29.

I asked Carey whether the Montreal race might be at risk if, eventually, room must be made on the calendar to accommodate a second U.S. Grand Prix. He did not hesitate in his response. “No,” he said. “Montreal is a great city with a great tradition, great fans. I think, actually, having another race in North America will provide the fans more of an ability to engage with the sport. I think it’s actually a positive for Montreal.”

What do you suppose Bernie would have said?