Bernie Ecclestone has responded to comments made by Texas Motor Speedway boss Eddie Gossage, after the latter branded the 83-year-old “foolish”.
Gossage has criticised the decision to schedule the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on the same weekend as the NASCAR race at TMS.
“I absolutely think it’s foolish. Nobody wins,” he said. “It’s a shot fired by F1 at NASCAR. I can’t say that I was surprised because Bernie Ecclestone does a lot of foolish things.
“It’s just not smart. There are 52 weeks in the year. But that was the only weekend that F1 could make it work in Austin, Texas? Give me a break.
“It wouldn’t have happened if [race organisers] had the strength and the fortitude to stand up and say no.”
Ecclestone however responded and explained the difficulties a “world championship” has over what he-called a “domestic series”.
“We’ve a small problem that they don’t have – we have six jumbo jets to move around all our equipment, and we have to find the most sensible way to use them to do that,” he told PA Sport.
“The race prior to the one in the US is in Russia, in Sochi. We’ve never been before, and we have to get out of there and into Austin. That is probably a lot easier than trying to get into Brazil, and then we have to get out of there to go to Abu Dhabi.
“So he [Gossage] is extremely lucky he doesn’t have to do what we have to do. I’ve also spoken to the people that run the race at COTA and their position is that they believe the NASCAR crowd is a different crowd to F1. Different people, different customers.
“At the end of the day they run a domestic series in America – we run a World Championship.”
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