Wee Bernie offers Von Mosley outside

Don’t mess with Wee Bernie Ecclestone. He may be smaller than your average garden gnome, but as many people have found out to their cost, he is not a man to make an enemy of. Having stuck by Herr Max von Mosley for much of Nazi Orgygate, it now seems that Bernie has finally lost patience with the FIA boss.

Ecclestone told The Times (sister paper to the News of the World, which broke the Nazi Orgy story) that he hoped the recent letter from Mosley to FIA member clubs, which was implicitly critical of Ecclestone (although it did not name him), was not an all-out declaration of war. Wee Bernie said:

“I sincerely hope that it isn’t a declaration of war because, if that’s what the message should be, then we’ll have to defend ourselves… That is what anyone would do. I don’t believe that’s what Max wanted the letter to say. I don’t want to have a war with Max. I hope he doesn’t want one with me.”

Heavy, ominous words from Bernie. Mosley should heed them - but he seems to be acting like a cornered animal, as he desperately tries to hang on to his job, if not his dignity and self-respect.

The back story to this new potential feud is the notion that F1 is facing a crisis. Mosley revealed in his letter that F1’s commercial rights holder CVC, represented by Ecclestone, is trying to renegotiate its 100-year agreement so that it has “control over the Formula One regulations and the right to sell the business to anyone.”

Mosley argued to FIA bosses that he should keep his job because he’s best placed to get involved in the “complex negotiations” that CVC would open. In other words, the FIA might lose even more powers if these negotiations were to favour CVC - so I’m your man to protect our collective interests, nudge nudge, wink wink.

We’d back Ecclestone to win this war, easily. Mosley is hanging on by a thread.