F1 sold to Liberty Media. Bernie Out?

[djos]

Bernie did a great job for a long time.... But in the last 2 decades he's held the support back by utterly failing to embrace digital media, HD TV broadcasts were delayed by him for years, ditching our favorite circuits for mostly boring Tilkie dromes and he's been sending promoters broke while making it bloody hard for us the F1 fans to afford to attend races (even those of us on 6 figure salaries balk at the costs, last time I went to the Melbourne GP on my own dime I spent at least $1,000 on just tickets and food!).

[Facts Only]

Sadly I think that retirement will be the end of Bernie, as with many his age without a purpose/job he will go downhill quickly.

[CriXus]

Ross Brawn lands key role in new-look F1 structure:
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ross- ... re-868065/

[bill shoe]

Wow. I've been following F1 since ~ 1984. Difficult to wrap my brain around Formula One without Bernie. His shadow, for better and worse, has loomed over F1 so long that it's hard to think about the sport after him.

[zeph]

More recent misgivings notwithstanding, Bernie Ecclestone has been an integral part of F1 ever since I started following it. Back then he was still a team owner (Brabham) and leading the rebel alliance (FOCA). He was already old, back then!

But as these things go, when rebellions are successful, their leaders become the new establishment. And when you are the establishment, you inevitably want to protect what you have. BE held on to power a little longer than he should have, I think.

Still, he is F1's most iconic figure, having outlasted just about all of his contemporaries. For better or worse, it won't be the same without him.

Bernie, you will be missed!

[Moose]

The things that liberty ^W "The F1 Group" has called out as needing to change:
• Revenue skewed to those who are already doing well
• Lack of on-track competition
• Dropping TV audience figures due to monetisation of the streams
• Longstanding races struggling to fund themselves due to poor equity deals
• Gridlocked decision making process
• Sporting and business decisions being made for short term financial gain and disregarding everything else

This is basically a perfect summation of everything that's wrong with the sport just now. Well done to them for realising it. Hopefully with Bernie no longer trying to syphon off the last cash he can we can get moving in a new, more sustainable direction that's good for the sport.

I have lots of hope that this will turn out well.

[djos]

Ross Brawn is confirmed as MotorSports MD and Sean Bratches as Commercial MD!

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/head ... roles.html

Excellent news imo. =D>

[Gerhardsa]

Ross Brawn back as the F1 boss of motorsport. That's excellent!

I don't agree with tons of things Bernie did over the last 10-15 years, but no matter, it will be a big job filling his boots.

Ross Brawn is probably one of the very few that can do that. Exciting times ahead!

[GPR-A duplicate2]

We can now hope to see some semblance in how the Motorsport (F1) regulations are conceived. On one hand you have Brawn as the MD of Motorsports from FOM (Let's continue to call it that way, not sure what Liberty media wants to call themselves) and on the other, there is Jean Todt as FIA President. Two people who have a great relationship.

Brawn had already expressed this thoughts on differentiating F1 from RoadCar technologies.

Link -> F1 engine formula needs road relevance rethink - Brawn

Former team boss Ross Brawn believes it might be time for Formula 1 to stop thinking about its technology being road car relevant when the sport decides on the next generation of engines.

So we can hope to see some change for next generation of Engines for F1.

[Fulcrum]

Crazy, and completely unlikely.

Bernie teams up with Ron Dennis and David Brabham to purchase the Manor team, renaming it Brabham.

Manor benefit from the future redistributed prize pool, Bernie's wallet, connections, and history within the sport, Ron's experience as a Team Principal and the history/prestige of the name.

F1 benefits from the reintroduction of an iconic name, retention of paddock personalities with historic ties to the business, and likely increased competitiveness.

Bernie and Ron keep themselves busy, avoiding complete redundancy.

[zeph]

Brawn in charge of all things racing and Bratches bringing some American business acumen to the table; on paper it sounds like a winning combination.

I'm optimistic

[Unc1eM0nty]

- Small change but at last evil American capitalists did something right. How did he keep his job for so long? Embarrassing failure after failure.

Stuck in his ways yes, but a failure ? it sold for £6.4 billion

[Sawtooth-spike]

I really hope they build on grass roots F1. I remember watch F1 on BBC at Lunch time on Sundays. Thats what hooked me.

My daughter, (ok she is only 18 month old) would only see F1 if I watch it. Its not accessible and because it not free to air (really) you have to want to watch it. The shame for the UK is the deal Bernie did with Sky last year to have all of the races

I am excited that an The rule will be written by engineers and not lawyers.

[FrukostScones]

I expect a spec series now.

glorious PU's will be put in the shredder.

and:

F1 is not about on track action. (that is just the icing on the cake!)

It's a frigging soap opera for man.

[Vasconia]

Ross Brawn is confirmed as MotorSports MD and Sean Bratches as Commercial MD!

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/head ... roles.html

Excellent news imo. =D>

Excellent news. Ross is a pretty reasonable and inteligent guy. He will do a great job.

Difficult to imagine F1 without Bernie but I guess it was time to make some serious changes. Its good to see that Liberty has cleary identified most of the current problems of F1. Now we must wait and see if they can develop the appropiate strategy to solve them.