Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsOpinion

Ecclestone 'hoping upon hope' Ferrari challenges Mercedes

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Bernie Ecclestone says he is "hoping upon hope" Ferrari challenges Mercedes this year to make F1 more exciting for fans.

Mercedes has dominated the sport for the last two years, with Lewis Hamilton winning back-to-back world championships as his team has won 32 of the 38 races since the start of 2014. Ecclestone has been highly critical of F1 recently, saying the sport is "the worst is has ever been", but he believes Ferrari providing a stern challenge will instantly increase excitement.

"The bottom line is a simple one," Ecclestone told the Australian Grand Prix official podcast. "I'm hoping upon hope that Ferrari get back to where Ferrari should be, which would be challenging for the world championship, and the same with Red Bull.

"It depends an awful lot on how Ferrari perform. If they don't show they can win the championship, unfortunately - or fortunately depending on where you are - we're going to have a Mercedes dominating again."

However, Ecclestone is also hoping to see Nico Rosberg continue the run he showed at the end of 2015 in order to challenge Hamilton.

"Having said that, maybe Nico, after three wins at the end of last year, he's going to be in form. If those two [Hamilton and Rosberg] are challenging each other, it will be good.

"Maybe he has suddenly got a bit more confidence in himself, so let's see. I haven't got any predictions, a lot of hopes but I wouldn't like to put my money on who is going to do what."

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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.