Original subtitles

Someone called me and said I got somebody that wants to buy Formula One.

I said there's been a few people who have been trying to do that.

Are they serious, yeh, we need to talk to somebody.

You want to talk to somebody that owns it.

Probably the best thing to do because it's not me.

The banks had a majority of the board

and if they had wanted to,

they could have fired me.

But then Donald Mackenzie who ran CVC,

a very successful hedge fund,

wanted to buy Formula One.

And Donald said to me if we buy, would you stay on and run the company.

Donald said we have to sort the money out.

It's a case of what we could borrow and the interest rate.

Let's see if we can help them so I called Fred Goodwin from RBS.

I said Fred, it's a good deal you're here in my opinion.

So Donald borrowed the money from RBS.

Lo and behold, I had another boss.

But I had a few up to now so I knew exactly how to behave.

If I ever have.

180 miles an hour around the outside I've never seen anything like it.

Fourth championship again. Thank you for all these years.

I've decided together with the team

at the end of this year that

I'm going to retire from racing.

Congratulations on Lewis Hamilton who's such a wonderful prospect

in British motor sport. Double winner in GP2 this weekend

winning yesterday and winning today.

You're coming through the ranks now. Everything you've done from Karting

all the way up you've won in every Formula. You're very much looks like you're

going to win this GP2 season if you continue at the pace.

But in your eyes now, you know that you've got an association McLaren, but where do

you really think you can go from here? Is it truthfully into a McLaren car

or is it somewhere else down the Formula One pit lane?

I think anything is possible as you know, there's possibly

a seat available at McLaren, but that would be a dream to go

into the second McLaren seat. But I think my aim at the moment

again is to win the GP2 title, but then we just have to wait

and see. I don't expect to jump straight into a McLaren.

I would have thought I would go into one of the lower teams,

but we'll just have to wait and see.

Putting anyone beside Fernando could be trouble.

This could be the lead going for Hamilton.

Alonso senses an opportunity.

They are side by side down

the pit straight in Indianapolis.

Hamilton holds his nerve.

Ron, I don't think he ever looked as Lewis being a number 2 driver.

We come to Grand Prix's with a clear

intention of running our

cars equally, giving both

drivers every opportunity to win.

Hamilton deliberately disobeyed

instructions to let the lighter

Alonso passed to go for pole.

Alonso having to wait.

There's Lewis Hamilton queueing up behind him.

Now Alonso's not getting on with it.

Only a minute forty to go.

Is he blocking Hamilton here?

That was a little bit naughty I think.

I think he deliberately did that.

That is extraordinary.

A bit of gamesmanship within his team by Fernando Alonso.

Ron Dennis got out of his chair and was waving his hands around clearly furious.

Well, the McLaren team try to insist it was a team error but the stewards,

they decided that they didn't believe what Alonso had to tell them and

they moved him five places back on the grid.

People used to ask me, tell me, what do you

actually do? I tell I'm a firefight

because there was always fires.

On the morning of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Ron rang me and he said, I just had Alonso

in the motor home and he says he's got information. He's threatening to give it to

the Federation. And then Ron said, but there isn't any information. So I said,

well, so it's an empty threat. Yes, a completely empty threat.

There's no information. There's nothing to come out.

I can assure you that if there was something Max, I would have told you.

The FIA say they have the smoking gun. Proof that McLaren had used Ferrari

secrets to make their own cars go faster. The new evidence was an email between

test driver Pedro de la Rosa and race driver Fernando Alonso, discussing

Ferrari's weight distribution, their flexible wings, braking system and

pit stop strategy. Ron Dennis insists there was never any Ferrari intellectual

property actually on the McLaren car.

It's very difficult for me when somebody I've known 40 years, looks me in the eye

and says Max, I'm telling the truth with complete sincerity and you believe him.

And it was only when I got the list from the Italian police 323 I think SMS phone

calls going over a three month period. There has to be more to this,

this is something serious.

I said to Ron beforehand, when you come into the meeting,

don't come in with 10 lawyers and a doctor and whatever. I said, just come to yourself

and simply say the truth, I may have made a mistake in letting what happened happen.

Probably a big mistake and I'm sorry about this.

I just want to be very clear at no stage did I ever say any lie to anybody. I put my

integrity above everything, above this sport and certainly above Formula One.

In the end, Max got really upset about the whole thing.

I said, Ron you have polluted the championship in 2007. You've probably

polluted it in 2008 because we have no way of knowing what information you're using

for what in your 2007, 2008 cars. So you better stay out of the championship

until 2009 if you're still around because that way we know it's completely fair.

In the end, I managed to convince the World Council at that time, all we needed

to do was take away what they would have earned normally if they did run for two

years and not ban them because if we banned McLaren they'd never come back and it was

terrible to lose a team like McLaren.

This gentleman here, front row. What's your next course of action?

Will you accept the penalty? Are you going to fight it?

Okay. We believe we've got the grounds for an appeal, but of course we're going

to wait for the findings of the FIA, which we believe are going to be

published tomorrow and we'll consider those carefully.

Pity that we lost Ron.

He's one of the old timers that was really was behind Formula One from very early on.

Kimi Raikkonen is World Champion of 2007 and the dream is over for Lewis Hamilton.

The pictures that have shocked the world of motor racing.

Spain is under pressure to act after Lewis Hamilton was racially abused in Barcelona.

Hamilton is not popular in Spain after a public falling out with Spanish driver

Fernando Alonso last year.

It's been reported that a few people, spectators is to sort of black themselves

up a little bit was leaning on the fence. So I said, well let's go and find them,

which we did. And I explained to them which I what I thought I said, I'll tell

you what we ought to do. You're gonna be here tomorrow. Yeah, they said they were

gonna be there tomorrow. I said, well tomorrow we'll get hold of you and bring

you into the paddock and you can face up with Lewis and explain to him

why you've blacked yourself up.

Which they thought was amusing until I made it clear I wasn't doing it to amuse

anybody. But if they wanted to make a statement, that would be a good

opportunity to make it. Funnily enough, they didn't make it.

Welcome to the Singapore Grand Prix.

Some races always produce something different and interesting

like Singapore for example.

Massa away in the lead. Hamilton 2nd, Raikkonen 3rd.

In comes Alonzo. Now, he's going to slip back behind all the traffic.

Oh, big crash. That's Nelson Piquet and that is likely I would have thought

to bring out a safety car is it?

It looks a mess, but it's a relatively minor incident. There's a lot of pieces

all over the track. That's gonna work out very well for those that anticipated

there would be a safety car.

Pit lane is now open.

When this all sorts itself out, Alonso is going to be leading the Grand Prix.

Massa pits.

Oh no! That's a big mistake. Massa's gone.

That is the race leader. Ferrari's made a catastrophic mistake here in Singapore.

The green flag. Race is resumed here in Singapore.

Alonso leads the Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso coming through to take the checkered flag in

Formula One's first ever night race and extending his

championship lead. Lewis Hamilton finishes 3rd.

Felipe Massa crawling across the line in 13th place.

Piquet's father, Nelson had spoken to his son to ask him what the hell happened. Why

can you just do stupid things you did? And I think Piquet explained to his dad

that he was told he ought to do this.

One thing's for sure in my opinion, it was never Flavio because

he would have never, ever, ever thought of how to do things like this.

Max was really, really unhappy. I suppose he would have liked Flavio to

confess that it was him that would have made life easy for Max then

anyway he didn't get the confession.

The penalty for Briatore is that he can no longer be associated with the team, he can

no longer be associated with the series, he can no longer come to the paddock of any

FIA championship event and he can no longer manage drivers in Formula One.

Do you still count that race as a proper race, victory for yourself?

Yes, I do.

Even though the team effectively manufactured it.

But I think that's uh interpretation.

Massa! Massa!

Massa! Massa!

Massa! Massa!

So Lewis all he really wants is 5th place or better this afternoon.

The final stages of this world championship.

Oh my goodness me, Vettel has taken a place and that could cost

Hamilton the World Championship.

Only a few corners to go now and desperation starts to creep

in for Lewis Hamilton.

Is that Glock? Is that Glock going slowly?

Oh my goodness me, Hamilton's back in position again.

He is going to claim 5th place which is all he needs to do

to become 2008 Formula One World Champion.

Slavica was fed up my traveling. I think in fairness to her,

I think I promised her so many times. This is going to be the last year

and I'm gonna step down.

I think she knew it wasn't true, it wasn't gonna happen.

Even if it was my intention, she knew I wouldn't carry it out.

So she decided she was 50 years old.

She was well off. And I think she thought she could have a

much happier life and she decided she should leave.

So it was the end of me being with Slavica. I've been with her for 28 years odd.

It really is one of the biggest failures that I had when I wanted to do something to

make something happen and it didn't happen.

We renew with CVC or we theoretically as the basketball teams in America did many

years ago with the big success, create our own company like NBA just to run to the

races, the TV rights and so and third to find a different partner.

I don't know whether the teams wanted to actually run Formula One

in the way they thought it should be run.

This will be very important the team decisions because at the end of 2012

our contract will expire. So theoretically CVC doesn't own anything.

In fact they discussed the fact that they should get together Formula One Teams

Association where they thought they could be in a much better position.

Formula One has been thrown into chaos with eight of its major teams saying they're now

planning to set up a rival championship. The threat is over a row with the

motor sports governing body over proposals to limit how much each team can spend.

Do you think there will be a resolution?

I have no idea. Speak to Max.

We must operate up the cost cap if you possible under present circumstances

is to operate any other way.

Max wanted it to be restricted to an absolute maximum of 40 million a year.

The basic issue is very simple. We cannot go on spending the

sort of money that's been spent. So what we're saying is,

limit the expenditure and then a clever engineer within that

expenditure can do whatever he likes on the chassis.

This is a row about money and power. Teams don't like the idea of having budget

caps imposed upon them from above, but the FIA regards smaller budgets as

essential if the sport is to survive in these difficult economic times.

It's in the nature of a loony that you don't really have a leader that

you also loonies together. Generally speaking, they find it very

difficult to agree on anything.

What's your next step?

The next step that we're going to take because trying to take something which

isn't yours is not really in accordance with the law. So next week we will be

issuing legal proceedings against, against Ferrari and also against FOTA.

This weekend, Bahrain is hosting a Grand Prix. When Moseley's traveled there

in the past, he's received a royal welcome. But the crown prince of Bahrain here on the

right has written to him asking him to stay away this time, informing him that his

presence there would be inappropriate.

Mex had another problem. This is how he was reported and carrying out sort of sexual

acts and beatings and all sorts of things. Whatever journalists could even think about

or even wish could happen.

But Max Mosley insists that there were no Nazi connections to anything that happened.

I said to Max, we've gone to millions of meetings together. The one meeting I would

have loved to have gone with, I never got an invite.

Motoring organizations, Formula One teams and manufacturers and personalities

around Formula One have been suggesting that Max Mosley must step down as

president of the FIA, the ultimate governing body of the sport.

Corporation like Toyota and the team can't really accept behavior of that nature.

If he had been working for any multinational corporation public company,

a theory would have already had to resign because the moral issue is part of that.

A person in his position with his background, it's unbelievable.

Significantly this morning, his long term partner at the head of Formula One,

Bernie Ecclestone refused to give an interview that would either criticize or

even defend his old friend instead just saying that Moseley's future is now

entirely a matter for the FIA.

I had an awful lot of pressure. The sponsors called me.

All the teams called me. Promoters called me.

There was no one that didn't call. So you must insist that Max goes.

The sport is losing certain power, certain sponsorships and a break up

is possibly imminent if he doesn't make that decision quite soon.

It's the first time you know that I've done such a thing, which I knew was wrong to do.

So the World Council meeting, I apologized to Max in front of everyone.

I was more hurt. I think Max was in it when it all happened that I'm not

supporting him but have been against him. And it's something I should never forget.

Speed is everything in Formula one. But even so the pace of today's deal

between FIA President Max Mosley and Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo

caught many by surprise.

Ah dear oh dear.

Yeah, I mean but, good quality people.

In those days, they used to get a percentage of the television revenue

having made an agreement where they got a percentage of everything the company made.

Which was about 70%. No FOTA and no more money for the teams.

One of the goal that we shared with Max one year ago was to maintain the most

important teams and the car manufacturers in Formula One. There is a commitment to

stay in Formula one at least until 2012. But as far as Ferrari is concerned,

this is not only Ferrari is indefinite for, for the future.

Had the teams decided they wasn't going to sign, it would have been

very easy to get another group of people to produce Formula One cars

and do exactly that. Formula One teams are like actors in the film.

It's a film that makes the actors not the actors that make the film.

Whilst on the face of it, this was an argument about cutting costs, what the

teams really wanted was a greater say in the running of Formula One

and they wanted Mosley out.

Max was ready to stand down from the FIA. He had more or less enough of what he was

doing. And he didn't do this until he knew he could find somebody that could replace

him and he spoke to Jean Todt. He spoke to me about this and we agreed probably

Todt would be the right guy.

I love racing, you know, I mean why I've been aiming for this position because I

love cars, I love racing and I'm motivated to go for it.

Max had never managed to achieve what he really wanted

to achieve. It wasn't being president of the FIA at all.

He was a politician basically and he would have been a super Prime Minister.

He's a controversial billionaire who's been the boss of Formula one for three

decades and in that time Bernie Ecclestone's rub shoulders with world

leaders. Today in an interview with The Times, he criticized contemporary

politicians and commented on Adolf Hitler.

I get a little bit upset when people say I'm anti-Semitic or against black people

or anything is completely utterly wrong.

He believes in a form of dictatorship because he always believed that no one

else will agree, he'll have to pull them together and it will be his way or no way.

While few will argue against the need for strong leadership, it is Ecclestone's

reference to Adolf Hitler that upsets some people.

Typical of journalists and I don't blame them, they have to write something the

majority of people like to hear. I'm not anti-Semitic, never have been, never will

be. And I'm not against black people.

Seb is mothered by Red Bull. He's a very sensitive guy. So it's good for him at Red

Bull. Seb and I got on from day one. We used to go on holiday together and meet

each other, come to the house at Christmas because he lives in Switzerland. I taught

him to play Backgammon. He's a winner and does get upset if he doesn't win.

Christian Horner, the team manager used to say to me, make sure when you play

backgammon before the race that you beat him because he gets so aggressive.

We have four contenders. Who will be champion today?

Sebastian Vettel, you are the World Champion!

If there's one team who knows how to party, it's Red Bull.

The new World Champion Sebastian Vettel.

You're a triple world champion.

Sebastian Vettel wins at India.

I said if we have to lose a team and which is the one we can't

afford to lose I'd say Red Bull and Ferrari.

A number of different disciplines are required to run this business. Any other

business engineering, as well as business practices, accounting, etcetera, is a

combined board that will run the business.

Frank was one of those guys. He was always very positive about everything.

Even after this accident.

It's just too much for me. Really nice thanks.

He was a special, special person.

Michael, he was never born to be with Mercedes.

It is without doubt that we did not achieve our goals to develop a world

championship fighting car. It's good to say goodbye and that's what I'm doing

here with by the end of the season and it might this time even be forever.

Nikki realized what a valuable driver Lewis was and he found some way of

persuading him he should be driving for Mercedes. If he didn't get paid what he

wanted, Lewis, he wasn't going to agree. So I said at least somebody that I think

Mercedes needs, I'll pay the difference. But eventually Mercedes paid.

After nearly four decades in charge, Ecclestone finds himself in the

high court in what is the biggest challenge of his career.

German media company Constantin Medien claimed that he finalized a multi-million

dollar payment to a banker called Gerhard Gribkowsky resulting in F1 being

deliberately undervalued when it was sold and then losing out on commission and so

they're suing for 140 million dollars.

Ecclestone is accused of entering into a corrupt agreement with this man,

German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky who was selling his bank's stake in Formula One.

It's alleged the deal facilitated that sale which included its lucrative

TV rights to Ecclestone's chosen buyer who in turn would agree to keep

him on as boss of Formula One.

Today we've been hearing evidence from Donald Mackenzie who is the chairman of

CVC partners, the private equity group who bought F1, 7 years ago. He said if

Bernie Ecclestone has done something criminally wrong, he would be fired.

The judge ruled that the shares weren't sold too cheap.

Today a legal victory but it may not have felt that way for Ecclestone with the high

court ruling he paid a bribe to secure a deal to sell F1 back in 2005.

I never bribed anyone.

You emphatically maintain your innocence, don't you?

Absolutely.

No corrupt agreement, no corrupt bargain.

No, no.

You confident that you can stay at the control and at the top of Formula One?

I'm happy doing what I do. The minute I'm not, I leave.

After the trial in England, it opened the doors a little bit. The people to start

thinking that maybe there was something else. So I was prosecuted in Germany.

They were very nice about these things. I went a couple of days a week.

The whole trial with evidence obviously in German so I sat there peacefully.

I'd obviously managed to acquire it but turned out decent lawyers to defend me.

We are in a situation where we can make our statement and have a fair chance to

explain how the events run at that time.

And during the break for lunch, they bring me up to speed.

We've been there I think three months or four months or something and Sven decided

that this could go on forever and maybe there was a good way of sorting this out.

Basically in a very crude and not very nice way to put it, you can buy your way

out of these things. So I met with the prosecutor. Just tell me how much you're

looking for to settle this. He said, well you're very rich.

Would you like to make an offer? And I've got to have three figures.

100 million.

I said there's three figures what you're asking for

Put out my hand to shake hands with him

in the normal used car dealer fashion which he said, shook hands.

The judge is happy to accept that and he said to me, can you pay that?

I said if we hurry before the banks close, I think we can manage.

Am I happy? I'm happy to get back to the office.

Hamilton wins the Italian Grand Prix. The margin three seconds over his

teammate Nico Rosberg. It's another one-two for Mercedes.

Has he got the cap?

They're a bit optimistic thinking that that flag might be celebrating

one of the three podium men. The disappointing season for Ferrari.

It was a little bit of a surprise when Luca decided to disappear

from Formula One because nobody could ever expect that to happen.

My first meeting with Bernie Ecclestone was in the middle of 1973 in a hotel in

the airport where we used to have a meeting to Formula One and I'd be

sent there from Enzo Ferrari.

I mean he was Ferrari, no doubt about that. Everybody looked at him as Ferrari.

Lewis Hamilton is the 2014 World Champion.

Well done.

World Champion. First Mercedes Benz champion since Fangio.

Good day.

For you.

Lewis Hamilton and he's now a three time World Champion.

You start thinking about, you know everything, you've gone through the trials

and tribulations, what my dad did to get me there, the sacrifice that my dad had

four jobs at one stage, he was just putting for sale signs up in vending

machines and doing anything he could just to keep me Go-Karting.

And then you sack him.

Well, yeah.

Donald Mackenzie rented a really nice boat. Chase Carey and Sean Bratches and their

wives wanted to see royal. We had dinner together and talked about things in general

and never really much about the business, but more about Monaco and Formula One.

Business wasn't discussed there at all. I think what they really thought in the end,

the bottom line was simple. Here we've got an 80 year old guy that's been running

this company for 40 years. Imagine us proper American business people,

if we had the company, what we could do.

Hello Bernie, I haven't talked to you on the grid for a while.

Is there something big going down in Formula One ownership?

I don't think so. A lot of conversations good for the press, you know, they've got

nothing else to write about. This is all good.

I believe the deal is going to happen with a minority shareholding initially with

Liberty Media guy called Chase Carey coming in as chairman, presumably

executive chairman, which obviously has implications on where Mr. E.

fits in it all and... If that's the case, is your hunch

that this could be the end of Bernie Ecclestone.

If the deal gets concluded, changes will take place.

Welcome back. Bernie Ecclestone says he is prepared to stay in his role as the chief

executive of Formula One following Liberty Media which belongs to John Malone,

the news that has bought the company that has a controlling stake in Formula One.

The company that has that stake is CVC and now Liberty Media has bought a

controlling stake for $4.4 billion. Take debt involved in the actual size

becomes about $8 billion. Ecclestone is set to stay for now but

there's a new chairman. Chase Carey.

We have somebody who knows what they're doing for a change.

I'm just here learning from Bernie,

I shall have to retire one day for sure.

Looking forward to it or

Why, nobody looks forward to dying.

I remember you winding me up years ago when I first met you.

And then one day I had a call from then new Chief Executive of the company saying

could we meet up on Monday. I said sure, sure. What time not to 10 o'clock. I said

yeah fine. So I appeared smartly dressed with a tie. Well I thought you know

make a good appearance in case they want me to hang on so I'll be looking for a

job so let's see what happens. And I was greeted although Chase was a bit late.

He said we bought the company. I said I know. I knew because

I had all the shares that they bought. So yeah I know and he said ...

I'll take your job. So I said you bought the car you might as well drive it.

And then well that lawyer had been with me for years working for me

appeared with a bit of paper written out. They said this is a sort of leaving the

company saying you're gonna leave because I had still had a three year contract

to go. So I said yeah so she said to me, there it is and I said what is it?

She said it's you're resigning. So I said where do I sign? Got a pen and signed

and that was the end of that.

It's really like a marriage really. Easy to get in, difficult to get out.

So I got out.

So that was the end of Formula one for me.

And then I was gone.

I can honestly say I've never planned anything. I've seen opportunities.

If I think they're worth it, I take them and try and make them work.

Sometimes they work well and sometimes I wish I hadn't have jumped in.

But overall I've been lucky.

Bernie is really a gardener.

He found this piece of land and planted some seeds that grew quickly and others

that would take many seasons. Sometimes he had to cut things down even if they

were very beautiful because Bernie always knew what the garden would be.

Bernie's garden will look after itself when his garden was made to last.