Ecclestone clarifies 'walls' comments

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Bernie Ecclestone has clarified his comments regarding erecting walls around corners in order to enforce track limits.

Ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix, Ecclestone was quoted as saying he wants to see walls on the outside of corners to punish drivers and increase the likelihood of crashes. However, in an interview with the official Formula One website, Ecclestone says his comments were taken out of context.

"What I really said was that these walls should prevent the drivers from running off the track," Ecclestone said. "Because now when they do, it is a case of somebody has to decide whether they ran off because they had a problem, or because they wanted to get an advantage or they make a mistake.

"That then means you have to rely on somebody’s opinion. If you have three stewards that means usually three opinions. One might call for disqualification, one might call for a penalty and the third one might say that there is nothing wrong with it at all.

"The easiest thing to do for some corners - and I really mean only some, and corners that are not deemed dangerous, where somebody could get an advantage by running off - would be to erect small walls to remind them that this is the white line. It would mean we lift the white line up by 40 centimetres."

And Ecclestone says his record of backing safe street races shows he does not want to put the drivers in danger.

"I have done more for Formula One’s safety over the years than anybody else, including having a hospital at the circuits, so we don’t need these discussions. I have never made it dangerous in Monaco - and it’s been there for decades. Baku was no problem, Singapore no problem. And if you ask a driver what race he would love to win more than any other, the immediate answer would be Monaco! There you have it: no driver ever complained about Monaco."

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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.