In a surprise admission that the current commercial agreement with the teams had lead to the current financial issues being experienced by smaller teams in F1, Bernie Ecclestone says that the only way to solve the current financial crisis is for bigger teams to make some sacrifices.

In a rather long press briefing by the F1 ringmaster, Ecclestone was quoted as saying that the distribution of the monies payed to teams is being done incorrectly.

“The problem is there is too much money probably being distributed badly – probably my fault,” said Ecclestone. “But like lots of agreements people make, they seemed a good idea at the time.”

Ecclestone seemed very sympathetic to the situation but because he does not own F1, he’s powerless to do anything to remedy the situation.

“If the company belonged to me I would have done things in a different way because it would have been my money I was dealing with. But I work for people who are in the business to make money.”

A proposed idea from Ecclestone is for teams to take a portion of the teams’ prize money and place that into a fund that will be able to assist struggling teams. He will then equal the amount of the contribution by the teams and place the money from CVC, the company that owns the commercial rights to F1, into the same pot.

Although it may see like a viable idea, he does not think that teams will like the idea.

“I would say to people getting a chunk of money that I would like to take a percentage of their performance-related payment,” Ecclestone said.

“I would put that money together to divide among the three or four we know are in trouble, and then I would put in the same amount of money.

“But there would not be one team that would think it was a good idea.”

Ecclestone says that he knows what the problem is and that he’s dealt with issues that are bigger than this. The difference with this situation is that there are large amounts of money involved.

“It’s not the biggest crisis I’ve dealt with, but I’m not happy,” he said.

“It’s just you are talking about larger amounts of money, so therefore it is more difficult to solve.

“We’ll have to do something about it because we can’t all sit back nicely, relaxed and think the problem will go away.

“It’s not like having the flu and taking a few tablets and it will disappear.

“The situation is such that if enough people want it resolved, we can resolve it.

“It’s a case that the people involved in the sport will have to want to look after the sport and be prepared to make some sacrifices.”