Bernie, the grand master of sledgehammer PR

Bernie Ecclestone is a man who always seems to be swinging a sledgehammer when it comes to PR, and cracking his own nuts.

On the face of it, his latest pronouncements about the role of women in Formula 1 are another Bernie blooper, guaranteed to embarrass him and damage the sport’s reputation.

Never mind that some of what he said to businessman Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured) was valid – there are some in the F1 world who would not accept women drivers (though, given that’s he’s been the biggest cheese in F1 since 1978, it’s fair to say plenty of the blame for this rests on Bernie’s modest shoulders).

And never mind that his assertion that women would not be strong enough to drive an F1 car quickly doesn’t stand up to scrutiny too well – British IndyCar driver Pippa Mann was quick to note that women can compete in that series without the need for power steering. And there’s much more to driving an F1 car than brute force these days, particularly in an era where tyre conservation allows very few flat-out laps to push drivers to the limits anyway.

Break out Putin, Trump and the kittens

No, Ecclestone’s purpose in saying what he did was perfectly straightforward: to generate headlines and build interest in F1 beyond the sports pages.

He also reiterated his admiration for Vladimir Putin (pictured) and Donald Trump, said immigrants had not made a contribution to the UK (that’s the F1 World Champion’s family dissed then) and suggested setting kittens loose on race tracks to spice up F1 qualifying. OK, two of these three, but you can see the pattern.

Ecclestone’s rise from humble beginnings to multi-billionaire sporting supremo is due in no small part to hard work and a hard nose for business, but never underestimate how important his ability to manipulate people has been.

From his early days selling motorbikes, through his battles with motorsport boss Jean-Marie Balestre in the early 1980s up to the present day, Ecclestone has repeatedly grabbed controversial headlines while, behind the scenes, carefully nurturing his power base.

Here are just five of his headline-grabbing antics…

The king and I

The 1980 Spanish Grand Prix was an early victim of the battle for F1 power between Ecclestone and Balestre. An ongoing row over regulation changes had led Ecclestone and Max Mosley to encourage the FOCA teams they represented to boycott a driver briefing before the preceding grand prix, in Belgium, prompting Balestre’s FISA organisation (the FIA’s forerunner) to issue fines to drivers – which they had no intention of paying.

You’d think this was enough drama, but no. Ecclestone threatened to organise a FOCA boycott of the Spanish Grand Prix, then got Spain’s King Juan Carlos involved.

As if that didn’t drum up enough headlines, Balestre’s officials found themselves confronted by armed police at the Jarama circuit, who kicked them out, as Ecclestone insisted that FOCA, not FISA, had the right to race there.

Don’t mention the war

In 2009, Ecclestone told The Times he preferred strong leaders. Unfortunately, he also said he viewed Adolf Hitler as a man who was ‘able to get things done’, and that it had been a mistake to remove Saddam Hussein and fight the Taliban.

While his views on 21^st-century geopolitics do not seem as controversial now as they did in 2009, even Ecclestone should have known better than to praise Hitler.

There was utterly predictable outrage, calls to boycott F1, and headlines galore. A few days later, Ecclestone said sorry – in both British and German newspapers – and admitted he’d been an ‘idiot’. And so he garnered even more coverage for F1 while suffering nothing more than a few more bruises to his well-battered reputation.

Jesting, in ye olde fashionede waye

Ecclestone’s sense of humour is well-known in F1 but… when you are worth $4billion and one of sport’s most famous tycoons, you’ll get a kicking if you start talking like a Carry On character.

Ecclestone could have had his own Carry On franchise. Aside from F1, that is.

His latest remarks about women in F1 are far from being the first such Ecclestone gems.

In 2000, he tried to joke about how difficult it would be for a woman to succeed in F1, adding that what he’d like would be ‘…the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish.’ It’s fair to say this wasn’t one of his best-received witticisms.

Unperturbed, our Bern polished his script and, in 2005, used a discussion about IndyCar star Danica Patrick to deliver this nugget: ‘You know, I’ve got one of those wonderful ideas: women should be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances.’

Yes, Sid James did turn in his grave.

Raining champion

In 2011, Ecclestone suggested on several occasions that he intended to introduce an automated sprinkler system in F1, to dampen the track and make racing more slidey and exciting.

He kept that story going for weeks – who cares whether he was serious or not, it grabbed valuable media space that would otherwise be filled with more football.

Let’s turn the lights out

While Ecclestone has got a few things wrong over the years (don’t mention the German legal system), most of the F1 headlines you read are testament to the number of things he’s got right.

Anyone fancy racing at night? It seemed like a pretty crazy idea before Singapore showed it could be done, and that happened only because Ecclestone was pushing for it.

Night holds no fears for Ecclestone. It’s said that, many years ago, he stood up during a meeting and turned off the lights, telling those present he wasn’t afraid of the dark.

While that meeting didn’t make the headlines, it did illustrate a willingness to take risks that has kept Ecclestone and his F1 in the limelight for so many decades. Dwell on that the next time he appears to pop his foot in his mouth, and consider whether Bernie’s the stupid one … or it’s the rest of us.