Bernie puts pressure on Melbourne

The Australian Grand Prix, year after year, continues to be in danger. If the Melbourne race is secure for the moment, the mayor of the city confided that he was considering breaking the contract before 2015. Bernie Ecclestone took him at his word. “If the mayor thinks I'm grumpy, I can definitely be,” said a very angry Bernie on Australian radio 3AW. “If he is not satisfied with this meeting, if he wants to terminate the contract, we would be happy to discuss it with him,” he asserted, in order to put pressure on his interlocutor.

Will the mayor of Melbourne take the risk of going further and seeing F1 leave the country? That's all it takes for Bernie Ecclestone, who knows how to use this kind of conflict to make his business grow. Last year, before the publication of the 2011 calendar of Formula 1, he did not hesitate to say that F1 did not need the Monaco Grand Prix, in order to toughen up negotiations with the organizers of the Race to the Rock.

“If he (the mayor) wants to see this Melbourne meeting disappear, I will be happy to discuss it with him,” Bernie insisted. “We have a contract, we do not break contracts,” he recalled, before expressing his surprise at this unease: “We have always been satisfied because we thought we would receive great, great support from the departs from Melbourne. »