Force India co-owner and team principal Vijay Mallya has called for Bernie Ecclestone to “uncrap” the sport following recent derogatory comments from the 84-year-old F1 boss.
Ecclestone was reported to have described F1 as a “crap product”, but it’s believed he was likely referring to the current power unit rather than the sport itself.
Nonetheless, during the FIA press conference on Friday, Mallya responded to the negative comment and called for Ecclestone to take action and “uncrap it”.
“How would I respond to the chief executive’s comment that he had a crappy product to sell? He shouldn’t be selling the product if he thought it was crap. But considering that he sells the product – that he calls crap and makes billions out of it – he needs to work with the participants to uncrap it!
“Formula 1 is perhaps the most exciting sport in the world. Probably has the highest viewership of all sports and, if Formula 1 is made sustainable for all participants I think the negativity will be removed.”
Along with Ecclestone, Mallya said the media had a responsibility to present the sport in a positive light to help remove some of the negativity.
“Either they [the media] can say that the sport is very boring because the two Mercedes cars are quicker than everybody else by miles, or, they can say ‘wow, Mercedes did a fantastic job’. It’s a question of the media’s option on how to present it.
“Having said that. I believe that all the positives of Formula 1 as a sport will be given more prominence if the fundamental issue, which everybody is speculating about – I’m sure many of us get asked these questions all the time – about ‘are you going to be around next year?’ This is a burning issue which teams themselves discuss at every possible opportunity and in every possible meeting, whether inside the strategy group or outside.
“So, as I said before, at this very press conference. If the stability of all participants in Formula 1 is addressed as a matter of priority, we will have more exciting racing and we will get a lot more positive media.”
