In an interview with The Times, Sir Jackie Stewart has been critical of Bernie Ecclestone's continuing hold over F1 - his comments can be read in full here. He makes some very good points but merely scrapes the surface of Bernie's ultimately destructive influence on the sport, in my view. Many of the changes brough about by Bernie that were accepted as beneficial at the time have turned out to be less than helpful in the long run.
Sir Jackie Stewart
Sir Jackie hits at the core of the problem when he highlights the relationship between Ecclestone and Mosley as being a large part of the problem. These two have run the sport as their own domain, accumulating power and wealth while taking little heed of the participants. The cost crisis currently being experienced by the teams has been created by an administration that has constantly tinkered with the rules, forcing designers into expensive areas of research and development. Meanwhile the sport's enormous income has been sold off to commercial rights holders for a fraction of their worth, resulting in very little being spent on the sport itself.
As Sir Jackie says, there is no obvious successor to Bernie's position and the same is true for Mosley (although plenty of very good suggestions have been made). The fact is, however, that neither of them can go on forever - Bernie is 78 years old and Max will be 69 in April this year. Both figures are way beyond normal retirement age and it is only their own certainty that they are indispensible that has made their tenure so tenacious. They are both well past their sell-by dates and it is time the sport found out whether it actually can function without them or not.
I suspect that the terrible two would find that F1 can live quite happily without them and that there are many who would do as good a job or better than they have. If nothing else, money would flow into other hands than Bernie's and that cannot be a bad thing - he already has far too much of the stuff anyway. The absence of Max would also mean that F1 might find a clear and sensible route to the future, instead of silly ideas constantly adjusted and revamped as they prove unworkable.
It is time for both of them to go. The old argument that only they know what is good for the sport no longer holds any water; the results of their greed are now becoming apparent and it becomes clear that the actual beneficiaries of their reign have been themselves, not F1. Any successors may not run things in quite the same way as we have become used to but that will be a good thing. Formula One needs fresh direction and a broader outlook - a new generation should be given the chance to make of the sport what it will, no matter how much the old men dislike the idea.
We should not fear a future guided by younger minds. Judging by what I read in forums and comment systems around the net, there is more respect and understanding of the roots and history of F1 amongst the young than Mosley and Ecclestone have demonstrated over the last decade. I, for one, am an old fogey that would be happy to see the sport transferred to the hands of those who are its rightful heirs. The future is the country of youth and is no place for old men.