There are similarly rumours that he was offered a CBE but turned it down as he deemed the honour to be not sufficiently prestigious for a man of his standing and achievements. When influential friends lobbied Buckingham Palace in an effort to secure him a knighthood, the Palace is said to have bluntly refused.
“Unlike Mick Jagger and people I have never taken drugs,” he reasoned, “and, unlike Sean Connery, I pay all my taxes in Britain. Anyway, I don't give a damn.”
From undeniably humble origins as the son of a North Sea trawler man, Ecclestone quit school at 16 to go and work at the local gasworks and pursue his hobby of motorcycling. He began racing in Formula 3 and later managed Stuart Lewis-Evans, who was killed in the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix after his engine exploded, and the sport's only ever posthumous title-winner, 1970
F1 world champion Jochen Rindt. Over the intervening years
Formula 1, he fears – or at least its leading personalities – has rather lost its character.
“Living on the edge made the drivers of the past interesting people,” he stressed. “Now,
Michael Schumacher and
Lewis Hamilton feel they have to keep up appearances for the sponsors.
“Everything has changed, hasn't it? Racing has become one of the last well-behaved sports. There are not enough sex scandals.”
