Confessions of a used car dealer

Bernie Ecclestone, billionaire power broker, legendary wheeler-dealer and the man who has almost single-handedly guided Formula One motor racing (not to mention himself) into its current era of glamorous plenty is sure of one thing. 'We're not communists,' he says, leaning forward so as to make total eye contact. 'There is no way we are all equal.'

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Ecclestone's wealth and influence will hardly be surprised by this remark. For if we know one thing about Bernie it is that he is not a great believer in equality. However, in this case he is not talking about people, but Formula One teams, and the suggestion that it would make his sport - which is dominated by the same three or four outfits every year - a lot more interesting if it adopted some transatlantic innovations to give the lesser teams a better chance. Some form of budget cap, perhaps.

Ecclestone, in his quiet, thoughtful, courteous way is outraged. 'Teams aren't equal,' he goes on. 'Some get more money, compared to others which are lazy, and other teams are not so competitive. The teams that are winning have people who run them who are super-competitive. Simple as that.'

What's more the realist in him knows such a change could never happen. 'McLaren have 463 people working for them, they have just built an enormous factory, so they need a big budget,' he says. 'So you're suggesting that next year we say to them: "We have some bad news for you. Last year we used to give you whatever, and you could run your business off that. This year we're not going to give you that, so you will go out of business. Or fire half the staff." It will never work.'

Ecclestone's response is instructive because it shows how far he is willing to go. A risk-taker and maverick by nature, he nevertheless knows that radical change is a non-starter in Formula One despite its current reputation for being boring. Not only do the same teams win every year, but the same driver - the brilliant Michael Schumacher - wins every race, or at least every important one.

The phenomenal German has won four world championships and is a near certainty to retain his crown this season. As if that was not bad enough, Formula One also appears to have given up on the art of overtaking, to the outsider the very point of the sport. On this subject, too, Ecclestone has a robust response.

'People talk about overtaking,' he says, 'but you look at the 125cc motorbike races. There's lots of overtaking there, but no one watches that on TV. Why? Because it's predictable that someone overtakes, then someone overtakes back and it just doesn't mean anything. F1 is more subtle, the thrill is in the hunting: can the guy catch the one in front? And if he does, at what point? It's like watching a football match with no goals; it can still be exciting and it's more sophisticated.'

Ecclestone is equally dismissive of the suggestion that whereas F1 was once a compelling competition between the world's best drivers, it is now just a question of the cars and technology.

'It's a package,' he insists. 'At the moment Ferrari have the best package. The best car, the best engine, most recently they also have had the best tyres, they've undoubtedly got the best driver, so that package works. Now if you went back to last year and took Michael out of the equation, it would have been very different. Michael motivates the team. And that is not such a bad thing because if you look back in nearly all forms of sport, for example when boxing was at its peak, Muhammad Ali was The One, people were waiting to see who was going to beat him. When Bjorn Borg, was at his peak he was unbeatable. But you knew someone would come along and beat him.

'People like to see a superstar, and then see who is going to beat him. At Imola recently, the conversation was all about who is going to beat Michael. And that's the interest. Can somebody beat him? So this race is over, and no one beat Michael. But then the next race comes up. Can someone beat him here? Will it be his brother? There is always someone out there ready to beat the star.'

There was a time when Bernie Ecclestone was a racer himself. Not in cars - though he dabbled briefly before an accident convinced him this wasn't his career - but on motorbikes. He was born in Ipswich in 1930. His father was a trawler captain and he grew up in Wangford, near Southwold, then Bexleyheath in south-east London. Ecclestone left school and began to race motorbikes in the immediate postwar era. 'When I started racing,' he remembers, 'my dad helped me a lot. When I raced motorbikes he used to come to races with me.'

And why did he start racing, what was his ambition? 'I don't know really, but I was competitive in those days.' So there was no vision of where he'd like to be in say, five years time? We always hear and read that great men always had great plans and visions.

'I can never say that. No. I didn't have any ambitions to be anything. When I left school, at 16, my father let me do that as long as I would go back and study for a degree in chemistry. So I left, and then realised I didn't want to do chemistry. I wanted to be something different and I used to wheel and deal. Basically I wanted to run my own business, I suppose that's it. The truth is I always wanted to be in charge of my own destiny and not have to rely on someone else. I'd rather do things my way.'

That, he always has done. As a teenager he began buying and selling motorcycle spare parts, building up a business that eventually became one of the country's biggest motorcycle dealerships. In 1957 he bought the Connaught Formula One team and since then he has been one of the movers and shakers of the sport, becoming a founder of the Formula One Constructors Association in 1974, and, seven years later, winning his organisation the right to negotiate TV contracts. That's when the big money started pouring into the sport.

Ecclestone has done things his own way in matters of the heart too, marrying late - in his fifties. When he did so - to Slavica, a former Croatian model who is 28 years his junior - many felt his lifestyle (the classic jet-setter, moving swiftly from race to race, and business meeting to business meeting) would not be suited to settling down and becoming a family man. But he and Slavica have two daughters - Tamara, 18, and Petra who is nearly 14 - and settle down is what, in his own way, Bernie has done.

The family home is in Chelsea Square and Ecclestone insists on seeing plenty of his nearest and dearest. 'I make sure I'm home in the evenings,' he says, 'and when there is no racing going on at weekends. I probably spend as much time with my family as most people, and more than many who have to work very late and don't get home in time to see their children. I have always found time to take the kids to school, other times my wife takes them.'

Surely a billionaire has someone to take his kids to school? 'We don't have a driver. We drive them around, so I'm with them a lot. They are growing up now, so they grow away from you.'

I tell him that I have read somewhere that his wife would like him to slow down. 'Me slow down?' he chuckles. 'She would, until I did. If I want to upset her, threaten her, I tell her I will stop working, so she can imagine me being at home all day long. That would not be a good solution.'

Ecclestone has an easy laugh, he seems relaxed and his general demeanour is quite different from the one the Formula One insiders see at the races, or at the endless commercial meetings.

What does he do to relax? 'I relax in the business. My wife says I'm more wound up at weekends than when I'm working. I like to be doing something, to be on the go, thinking, whatever. For me to sit on the beach...forget it. I'm a terrible guy to be on holiday with. Holiday for me is two days, that's it. I can survive two days, if it gets any longer than that, it's not so easy.'

But what of other forms of relaxation - of the theatre ('No'); music ('Don't really listen to anything'); art ('Yes, I like to collect'); ballet...

He sighs. 'Look, I was in Moscow the other day and I was taken to the Bolshoi. I had never been to the ballet in my life and I would never go to another one. But I thought I might as well go to the best, if I have to go. You know, those sort of things don't inspire me at all.'

He does like the cinema, or at least some of it. 'Good films I like. I like all the Bond films, the Godfather films, Pretty Woman, those sorts of films. I don't like films that have messages in them, I don't want to be lectured when I go to the cinema. I want to be in the film, be part of the film, but no lecture. I don't want to be converted from what I am to what I should be.'

I ask him if it isn't all business for him in Formula One, if he has affections and heroes. 'I was close to the people who drove for me or were in some way associated with me. People like Rindt, Lauda, Senna, Pace, Petersen, they were all characters. Today, it doesn't seem, at least driver-wise, that you have the characters we used to have. I don't know why it is - whether they're under too much pressure, whether they're earning too much money.'

I suggest that he might be in part guilty as he brought order and discipline in the sport, and in doing so blocked the way for some of the mavericks.

'Yes perhaps,' he concedes. 'They have to behave now. James Hunt today, would never be tolerated by Marlboro the way he was when he was driving for them. They are looking for a different image. I don't think they are even right. I think they're stupid. If I were a sponsor I'd rather have a character than just another guy that pitches up and says thank to the sponsors, thanks to the engine company, thanks to the tyre manufacturers. You don't need that. You need someone who is a bit of a character. And then there were people like Colin Chapman and Enzo Ferrari. I was very close to Enzo. These people I have great admiration and respect for.'

Enzo Ferrari in particular, you sense, was Ecclestone's type. He is giving the interview in his plush Knightsbridge office. On the opposite wall, directly in his line of vision, there is a small, black and white photograph of the great Italian, who founded the most famous motor racing team in the world.

Ferrari's big head is slightly tilted in the photograph, and he is wearing his trademark dark glasses. Ecclestone must look at it many times a day. 'Enzo was the sort of guy I like. You could shake hands with him. You could rely on him. You agreed something, that was it. And he understood things. He understood that the art of negotiation is the art of the possible, not to be stupid, because you're not going to get anywhere if you are. And he did great things. His beginnings were reasonably humble and he made it. A great man. And you can go anywhere in the world and you mention Ferrari and they know what you mean.'

Even now, 14 years, years after Enzo Ferrari's death, Ecclestone is in no doubt as to the importance of the team to the sport he runs. 'Ferrari not winning, in terms of news, is as good as other teams winning,' he says. 'Ferrari winning, is a whole chunk of cream on top of the cake. Ferrari is magic.'

As for other heroes, there is a long silence, and Ecclestone appears to consider the question very deeply. Then he looks up. 'Mandela, I know him quite well. I've been lucky enough to meet so many people and so many of them I have respect for. Nice people, like the King of Spain for example: he's a lovely guy.'

It's a strange, unexpected compliment. Nice is not a virtue that you would necessarily expect Ecclestone to admire, and you wonder whether 'nice guys' stand much of a chance with him. But he is insistent.

'Nice people are those you can sit down and have a chat with,' he says firmly. 'I have met lots of chairman and CEOs that I wouldn't give a job to, and I wonder how they ever got there and yet there are other people who do a super job and don't ram it down your neck, they just get on with things and deliver. They're the people I give my time and respect to.'

Bernie Ecclestone is reputed to be one of the richest men in Britain. According to Forbes magazine his net worth is $3bn. Time thinks it's nearer $4bn. The Sunday Times has Bernie and Slavica as the UK's richest married couple, as well as the fastest risers, topping the charts at £3bn. It makes him the third richest in the UK. He and his companies own Biggin Hill airfield in Kent, a grand prix racetrack in the south of France, a number of properties in and around London and in Switzerland, where he owns a house in the upmarket resort of Gstaad. And there are yachts and planes and cars. And if it all goes belly up, according to Forbes he can fall back on a $1bn family trust.

'Who's counting?' says Ecclestone. This is a man who can afford to give £1m to Tony Blair ('And I got it back,' he says with another glint of a smile), so what does money mean to him?

'My wife, myself and the kids, we honestly don't spend a lot of money on silly things. We do live in a nice house, but we don't do cranky things. They way the kids are brought up, they'd rather wait for the sales, so they can come back proud and say they bought things cheaper. And my wife is even worse. Because she was a model, she still gets a lot of clothes given to her, so she very rarely buys clothes like that. And what can a man buy anyway? I wear the same suit I bought maybe 10 years ago.'

Well, a man can buy a private plane.

'Yes I have an aeroplane. But I wouldn't manage to do the things I do if I didn't. Do I use it for pleasure? The answer is rarely. If I have my wife with us - for example she was with us for the San Marino Grand Prix because she helps a lot - she's very good at looking after people, entertaining. So she comes with me, but it's not pleasure for her, in fact she complains.

'But going back to your question. Money, for a business person? I doubt if any successful business person works for money. For most people who are reasonably successful it's a way of keeping score, that you're doing all right. We can't run a four-minute mile or we can't be like Schumacher so how do we reckon if we're doing good or bad? A business is there to make money. That is what you have to do. Money is a by-product of success. It's not the main aim.'

By any standard Ecclestone has done pretty well at the by-product, and he can only be judged a very successful businessman. Are there, though, any major decisions he got wrong, any mistakes he would like to reverse?

'I've probably made hundreds of mistakes, which I don't count. The biggest problem was not giving all the company shares to my wife. That was a mistake. The mistake was putting them into a trust. And the trustees probably did the right thing to sell the shares when they had the opportunity, rather than wait for me to die, and then find that maybe the shares weren't worth so much. Commercially they did the right thing. From my personal point of view, I wish they hadn't. Part of my life's work ended up out of my control.'

Such is Ecclestone's control of his sport that many of its big hitters worry what will happen when he isn't there any more. 'I've been going for such a long time - I don't know why people think I should go before my time, but anyway - three score and 10 years have disappeared, so now I'm on borrowed time.' There's another big smile, and then his face straightens. 'It concerns me, but it doesn't worry me. I don't worry about too many things, to be honest with you. 'Anyway, it's difficult for me to say to somebody: "Do what I do." I'm happy to delegate. But to get two people, for example, to negotiate with people, or over contracts, it's not easy. It's two people doing the same job. It's like having two artists painting the same picture. How the hell can you do that? I have my own individual way of going about things.'

He pauses. This is something that clearly does concern him. 'What will happen when I'm gone, is that the void will be quickly filled and maybe these people will do a much better job, but in a completely different way. This business has been built on entrepreneurial style, me trusting in people and people trusting in me and I would hate to think that it would end up in the hands of accountants and lawyers. I don't think it's right and I think eventually the business will suffer. You need someone to fly by the seat of their pants and hopefully get it right. I would rather they were a little like me.' He stops looking serious now. The eyes laugh again. 'Another used-car dealer is what we are looking for.'

Bernie and that donation

In 1996 Bernie Eccelstone made a donation of £1m to the Labour Party, which was then in opposition and preparing to fight the general election that came in May 1997. A few months later his donation became public knowledge, and the revelation caused a furore in Parliament, as it came just months after the party had made a policy U-turn on the issue of lifting the restraints on tobacco sponsorship within Formula One.

As a result Tony Blair was forced to fend off Tory attempts to link the two, a situation which ended in the Labour Party publicly handing the donation back to Ecclestone.

'I don't know what will happen,' says Ecclestone on the subject of tobacco sponsorship, which continues to be a live issue in F1. 'As long as I've been in motor racing it's always been "Tobacco is going to finish next year, or the year after.'" But now we have the idea that we are going to phase it out worldwide.

'I don't know whether we need to or not, whether it's necessary. If tobacco was killing people it was doing so a long time ago. There has been no evidence, ever, that people who watch [F1] smoke. No one has ever proved that to me. Kids smoke because they think it's the right thing to do. It's more likely they do so because their parents or the people who surround them smoke. All the tobacco commercial says is, "If you are smoking, smoke our brand". It doesn't say "Smoke!"'