Ecclestone speaks up for Putin: 'Would take a bullet for him'

F1 News

30 June 2022 at 09:32
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  • GPblog.com

Bernie Ecclestone causes a stir with his statement during Good Morning Britain. The former F1 boss says he would still take a bullet for Vladimir Putin. Formula 1 very quickly distanced itself from this statement.

Putin is defended

Ecclestone has been known for his remarkable statements for years. He has often spoken up for Putin in the past, but now that the Russian leader is being ruled out by everyone and everything because of his war with Ukraine, you might expect a different comment from Ecclestone than the one he made on the British programme on Thursday morning.

"I would still take a bullet for him. He is a first-class person. What he is doing is something he believed was the right thing for Russia. He is doing it for Russia. Unfortunately, he is like many business people like me, we make mistakes. When you make mistakes you do your best to get out of it," Ecclestone said in the morning programme. According to him, part of the problem also lies with the leader of Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky.

F1 distances itself from Ecclestone

"They have a person in Ukraine, his profession I understand, was a comedian. It seems as if he wants to continue that profession. If he had thought about things, he would have made a bigger effort to speak to Mr Putin, because that is a reasonable person who could have listened to him and done something about it'', Ecclestone concludes.

Formula 1 reacted very quickly with a statement. According to F1 journalist Luke Smith, the sport reports the following: “The comments made by Bernie Ecclestone are his personal views and are in very stark contrast to the position of the modern values of our sport,” the statement said.