“I know what it’s like,” Bernie Ecclestone apologizes over statement supporting Russian President Putin
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Bernie Ecclestone
In response to the invasion of Ukraine, former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone has issued an apology for remarks he made endorsing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ecclestone declared in an interview with Good Morning Britain last month that he would “still take a bullet” for Putin, the “good person.”
This prompted F1 to denounce Ecclestone’s interview, in which he also said Lewis Hamilton should have “blown off” Nelson Piquet’s racially offensive remark.
Ecclestone’s remarks were in “stark contrast to modern standards,” F1 stated shortly after this.
Ecclestone apologized for his remarks on Putin in an interview with Sky that was published on the Thursday before the Austrian Grand Prix, two weeks after the initial interviews.
Ecclestone reiterated his belief that older athletes whose opinions don’t coincide with those of the sport as a whole shouldn’t be given a platform in the same week that Nelson Piquet, a three-time F1 World Champion, made headlines for his harsh remarks about Lewis Hamilton.
Ecclestone’s remarks also drew his outrage, which he voiced in the following way; “We don’t need any more of it; to hear from someone who believes in the war, the displacement of people, and the killing of people, and supporting that person (Putin), is beyond me.”
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Bernie Ecclestone “didn’t intend” to spread that message
Bernie Ecclestone said that he did not intend to spread what people interpreted; according to him he was not supporting Putin’s actions about invading Ukraine, he said that he was born during the war and he knows what it feels like to be a citizen during war. “Probably I did the same, I could understand people thinking I’m defending what he’s done in Ukraine, which I don’t,” The Race quoted him.
“I was brought up during the last war so I know what it’s like, I feel sorry for the people in Ukraine having suffer for something they haven’t done.”
The 91-year old apologized for anything that might have hurt anyone.
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