Old friends hail Bernie Ecclestone on his 80th birthday
All the big names of Formula One got together on Wednesday to mark the 80th birthday of the crownless king of Formula One, Bernie Ecclestone. The day had not only been celebrated as his birthday, but was also marked
as a tribute for all the achievements of the supremo in making Formula One a global sport.
Ecclestone has been handling the commercial activities of formula One for the past 30 years, though his relation with the sport is even older. Even though Formula One had been one of the biggest racing series long before, yet the
glory that it has seen since Ecclestone took over was not even thought of before him. The increase in its popularity around the globe is attributed to the masterminded planning of the man, who not only enhanced its media coverage and revenues, but also took
the sport to new and alien markets where auto racing was completely a strange thing.
The times when Ecclestone joined Formula One, it was a neat game of elites which was cherished only in its traditional heartland, Europe.
However, yesterday, as all the major team bosses and higher management of FIA gathered to mark the event, the Ferrari team president and an old friend of Ecclestone, Luca di Montezemolo declared that it would not have been possible
without the hard work and immense dedication of the Briton.
Montezemolo proclaimed, “I have known Bernie since the start of the seventies, when I was Scuderia Ferrari’s sporting director and he ran Brabham and we enjoyed some good sporting battles.”
The Italian, further exclaimed, that Ecclestone has added so much value to the sport that whenever the history of Formula One will be discussed, his name wil come up on top. Montezemolo also added that the supremo also has the
credit of excluding so much odd from the sport, which no one else could have dared.
Sir Frank Williams, who ran the Williams Team at the same time when Ecclestone had Brabham, recalled the old good days spent with the Briton. He hailed the birthday man calling him “one of the world's best salesmen”.
While talking to a reporter Sir Williams told that the global and media value that F1 has today was not even imagined until Ecclestone came in. “He is without doubt the principle architect of our global expansion and success,”
he said.
Now, as Ecclestone celebrates his 80th birthday he joked around announcing his plan to stay there for a long time and has not made any succession plan. While quoting his words, the Mercedes GP boss Ross Brawn exclaimed
that the sport is so tightly knit with its boss that the teams cannot even imagine how the ‘post-Bernie F1’ will be like.
While thanking all old friends, Bernie Ecclestone, the former second-hand car dealer, said that he plans to keep going with the sport for another decade and after that Formula One must look for ‘another used car dealer’.
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