08/12/2014
NEWS STORY
While some of Bernie Ecclestone's more epic gaffes have been dismissed as misquotes or his comments having been taken out of context, his latest critical assault on the sport is in writing.
Having spent much of the year criticising the new sound of F1 - before turning his attention on the teams facing financial oblivion - the sport's supremo has gone on record as saying that without the in-house battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg it would have been a lousy season.
"We've been extremely lucky with what happened," he writes of the Mercedes duo in his introduction to the official F1 yearbook, "these two guys have been racing each other and it's good that Mercedes has allowed them to do that. If not, we would have had a really lousy championship."
The 84-year-old then proceeds to take Sebastian Vettel to task, admonishing the four-time world champion for his lack of fighting spirit this year.
"I'm a super supporter of Sebastian but I'm a little bit disappointed with his attitude," he writes. "He's acting like a defeated guy and he isn't - that's not his mentality. He's a competitive guy."
However, obviously remembering the great 'switch-off' as Vettel ran away with the second half of the 2013 season, the Briton adds: "I don't think we could have lived with another Red Bull year, any more than we could have lived with another Schumacher year.
"Ferrari was very disappointing, getting lost somewhere," he adds, ensuring that nobody gets left out. "Fernando got a little bit like Sebastian halfway through, so I'm a little bit disappointed in him, too."
As for one of the main talking points of 2014, he reveals: "The reason I was originally campaigning for three races with double points was just in case.
"If we hadn't been lucky with Nico and Lewis racing each other and one of them had got away and been dominant, the season would have been over by Silverstone. I thought perhaps Red Bull or Ferrari or one of the other teams would catch up halfway through the season and make up a few points at the end."