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 Speaking to Reuters two days after he said current F1 was the worst
it had ever been and he would not buy tickets for his family to
watch races, the 85-year-old sounded a much more positive note.
"I think now I’d be a bit more confident that we are going to see
some good racing," he said in a telephone interview. "Then I’ll be
happy."
Ecclestone said teams, who agreed the new qualifying format on
Tuesday, had finally woken up and taken a step in the right
direction with more change to come.
"I think there’s lots of things we can do and will be doing," he
said.
"What people needed was a bit of a shake up. I seem to be the only
person that has thought we should do something in Formula One, to
wake everybody up a little bit. And maybe that’s what’s happened.
"I wasn’t talking down the sport at all, quite the opposite. I was
trying to sort of explain that unless we did something that’s the
way we’d be going."
Formula One's core strategy group, which includes Ecclestone and the
top six teams as well as governing body, approved a range of
measures -- yet to be formally ratified by the International
Automobile Federation -- in Geneva on Tuesday.
The changes are aimed at making cars faster, louder, harder to
handle and more aggressive for the 2017 season.
The new qualifying format was passed unanimously, meaning it can be
introduced at this season's opening race in Australia on March 20
instead of waiting a year.
Under the new procedure, the slowest drivers will be eliminated as
the session progresses rather than at the end of each phase. The
final shootout for pole will be between two drivers rather than 10.
"The idea really is that it will be the same as qualifying in wet
conditions. Maybe one or two of the hotshoes aren’t going to make
it. So we won’t see the obvious on the front of the grid,"
Ecclestone said.
His own "dollar’s worth of input", he said, was something more
extreme.
"My idea was to leave qualifying just as it is, don’t touch it. And
then penalize people if you want from pole position downwards
depending on their result in the previous race," Ecclestone
explained.
He explained that would have allowed a driver's pole to be entered
in the record books for posterity, even if he did not start from the
front of the grid because of the ensuing demotion.
"I think if we had a different grid we would certainly have
different racing," he said.
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Looking further ahead, Ecclestone said the sport needed to do more
to reduce the dominance of champions Mercedes and rivals Ferrari,
who between them provide eight of the 11 teams with engines, both on
and off the track.
"It’s no good just seeing Mercedes in the front, without any
competition. That’s what I complained about," he said.
"I want the public to enjoy Formula One. I want them to go to a race
and not be able to say before they go ‘I’m sure (triple world
champion Lewis) Hamilton is going to win’. I don’t want that."
In his previous interview with Britain's Daily Mail, Ecclestone
compared the influence wielded by Mercedes and Ferrari to that of an
"illegal cartel".
Teams they supply usually vote in accordance with their wishes,
while Ferrari can also exercise a veto over matters deemed to be
against their sporting and commercial interests.
Ecclestone also said then that FIA president Jean Todt was too much
of a diplomat and should hand over the running of Formula One to
someone else.
He clarified those remarks on Wednesday.
"What was quoted by me about Mr Todt was very simple," he said.
"What was intended is that he is very busy doing the road safety and
things like that and for him, or me, to spend a whole day at these
meetings knowing full well we are going to achieve nothing before
the meeting starts is just not on.
"The moment the way we are structured... where Ferrari and Mercedes
can get together and their teams will have to follow them when they
vote… is not good. We don’t need two Formula One teams running
Formula One. They are competitors."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Angus MacSwan)
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