The former boss of Formula 1, Bernie Ecclestone, is certainly not lacking in self confidence despite his advanced years, and during a recent interview with the German media, Ecclestone doesn’t pull any punches when describing the job Liberty Media are doing.

It’s fair to say Ecclestone slams Liberty Media with a typical ‘Mr E’ style set of words to describe the situation the sport finds itself in. He looks back at his time as ringmaster of F1, and compares Liberty’s tenure with his own.

“As chairman, my job was to make sure the company was doing well and making a profit. That has been achieved. In the last three years that hasn’t happened in terms of profit,” Ecclestone said to sport1.de

“I didn’t have to justify myself to anyone. I wasn’t afraid of being fired either. I only got fired because the Americans thought they could do a better job – and maybe they did,” he said smugly…

Formula 1 is very much struggling to form stories to excite new fans along with poor racing and an aging fandom, problems that Ecclestone faced toward the end of his time. Liberty have yet to fix this issue.

“I certainly made a lot of mistakes in the past. But once I realised that, I corrected those mistakes. I didn’t wait for anyone to remind me. I immediately took it into my own hands. I think that’s the difference,” says Ecclestone.

“The whole world has changed so much – and incredibly quickly. We might not have the problems we have today if things had been different back then. A lot of things have changed in ways I would never have changed,” Ecclestone said.

Turning his attention to the current generation of drivers, Ecclestone laments the characters that made F1 interesting:

“People like Niki Lauda or Nelson Piquet are not born today. Today everything is a bit more aligned – in terms of teams, what sponsors think of you.

“We have lost all that. We are back to where we were 80, 90 years ago – with the gentleman drivers. The problem is, they’re not gentlemen anymore.”