Ecclestone reveals he has yet to meet F1's new commercial chief

Ecclestone, who is making his first paddock appearance of the year in Bahrain, was given the title 'Chairman Emeritus' when he was moved aside last year to make way for F1 CEO Chase Carey.

But despite still working at FOM's offices, it has emerged that Ecclestone has not yet met managing director of commercial affairs Bratches, and has had only minor contact with Ross Brawn.

"I've never met Sean," Ecclestone told Motorsport.com. "Ross popped in to see me for 10-15 minutes a week or 10 days ago. Chase I spoke to this morning. I've spoken to him two or three times."

Ecclestone says he has no formal role, but is still helping Carey when he is asked for input.

"He was asking me some things which I could help him with, which I did," he added. "So if there's any help they want, I'm there helping. He's in the lucky position that I wasn't in.

"I had to run the company to make money for the shareholders as chief executive, where they don't seem to have the same problem. So they can do lots of things and not worry about the income."

Asked if he meant that the new owners were investing for the long term, he said: "It's not a case of investment, really.

"It's like they bought Starbucks: everything's done. Even how much milk you put in the coffee.

"It's a case of keeping what's done, and adding on top of it things that I didn't do because it wasn't earning money, like this social media. They're going to spend a lot of money on that, which may be good, but it wasn't good for the company."

Surprised

The 86-year-old Briton also revealed he had no prior warning when Liberty arrived that his job was under threat, and that his removal in January had come as a surprise.

"They'd asked me before they completed the deal if I would hang on for three years. I said, 'Yeah, if I'm healthy, as long as I can deliver I'm happy, if I can't deliver I don't want to be doing anything.'

"And one day I got a phone call to meet Chase. He asked, 'Can I see you in the morning?' I said, 'Of course you can.' He said to me, 'You know I completed the deal yesterday?' I said, 'Congratulations.' And he said, 'I want you to step down as chief executive, because I want to take that job.'"

Ecclestone admitted he had not anticipated such a scenario, and says he could have made it harder for Liberty to remove him had he wanted.

"No, because they'd asked me to stay. The way I look at it, they bought the car, they wanted to drive it. Nothing wrong with that, if they owned the company and that's what they wanted.

"I could have made a bit of a problem, pulled my contract out, and said you can't really do that."

Brawn relationship

Ecclestone is acknowledged to have had an uneasy relationship with Brawn when the latter was boss of his own team, and later Mercedes.

The former F1 boss revealed a joke that he made at their recent meeting.

"I said to Ross the other day, 'At least they've got the right guy, you're the biggest cheat in F1, so you're the right guy to do the job. Sorry, the biggest cheat without being caught!'"

He added that Brawn took the comment with good humour: "He smiled and acknowledged that I was telling the truth! I wasn't just referring to Brawn, I was referring to when he was with Ferrari and Flavio."