Ecclestone wants to see F1 engine equalisation

Formula 1's former boss Bernie Ecclestone has added his voice to those calling for engine performance to be equalised.

The 87-year-old, who was ousted by new owners Liberty at the start of 2017, said it was the only way to stop one or two teams dominating the sport.

"I'm a big fan of Mercedes," he told Welt newspaper. "I have great respect for their performance. But they win too much.

"If they had sold or rented their engine to a top team like Red Bull, we would have better and more exciting races and maybe other world champions.

"We would not have had this total dominance, which in my opinion would have better for Mercedes as well," Ecclestone added.

Last year, Mercedes drivers took 15 pole positions. Ferrari picked up the remaining five. When it came to race wins, the Silver Arrows won 12 Grand Prix races with five going to Ferrari. Red Bull picked up three wins.

Only one driver from outside the top three teams - Williams' Lance Stroll - finished on the podium all season.

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Ecclestone said that Liberty had done little to tackle this problem since taking over the sport.

"Not much has changed in the technical and sporting regulations," he commented. "That's surprising, because the biggest problem is that we urgently need exciting races.

"They should, or they must, achieve a certain equality of opportunity among the teams as far as the engines are concerned," he said.

Ecclestone said he understood why teams like Mercedes and Ferrari wanted to protect their technical advantage in the sport after spending so much money developing complex power units.

But he also insisted that the teams were only harming themselves if this resulted in making the sport less appealing to fans.

"The manufacturers must understand that it's necessary to make the sport more attractive," he explained.

"The public must not know who wins even before the race just because one or two engines are so much better."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.