Ecclestone stole F1 from teams - Dennis

Hot on the heels of renewed talk of a F1 ’breakaway’ series, reports quote Ron Dennis as accusing Bernie Ecclestone of stealing the sport’s commercial rights from the teams.

The McLaren supremo’s comments appear in the new Ecclestone biography called ’Bernie’.

"Bernie effectively stole formula one from us," Dennis charged.

He is referring to the transfer of F1’s lucrative commercial rights from the team-led Formula One Constructors’ Association (FOCA) to Ecclestone’s company in the 90s.

"He used this commercial benefit to persuade the teams to accept a contract that eliminated them from the passing of rights as had previously existed," Dennis said in the book.

McLaren - as well as Williams - contested the transaction, claiming that some of the profits of the rights’ subsequent sale belonged to them.

The British teams also sued the law firms that represented them for giving bad advice, but Ecclestone insists they simply regretted not making a wiser decision.

"It’s only when things started to look good and I invested the money and it started to work that they thought maybe they should have done it," said the 80-year-old.