“Under Bernie Ecclestone the big teams had advantage”

Ecclestone was at the helm of F1 for over 40 years before Liberty Media’s takeover in 2017.

F1 has undergone significant changes since then, particularly with how it has opened its doors up to fans with increased social media presence.

• Ex-F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to face £400m fraud charge

Ex-Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali took the top job of F1 at the start of 2021, replacing Chase Carey.

Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Steiner praised Domenicali for being “more transparent” compared to Ecclestone, who tended to favour the bigger constructors.

“I think they are different. Definitely, they are different,” he told the Beyond the Grid podcast. “Everybody’s included. Before with Bernie, the big teams always had a little bit of an advantage, but it’s for a good reason. They’re putting more into the sport that they are supplying power units and stuff like this.

“But I think it’s more transparent now with Stefano in charge, it’s more information. He always tries to update us on what is going on in his world [because it impacts] what our world will be, because he’s at the leading edge of it. So I think he’s just more transparent, we are more informed.”

Steiner didn’t want to criticise Ecclestone for his stewardship of F1, but instead praised Liberty Media with how they’ve made the sport more “stable”.

“I’m not critiquing what Bernie did, it was different times as well, we always have to think about this, the times were different, everything was different,” he added. “Now, F1 is a lot more popular. The money distribution is more equal. We have got 10 teams, which are all very stable.

“In the old days, we never had 10 stable teams, there was always one or two, which were lagging behind the thinking a little bit so now it’s very stable.

“But that was achieved in the way Liberty Media approached the sport, they wanted all 10 teams to be able to commercially survive. So we have a good show and nobody’s struggling.”