Bernie Ecclestone doesn’t blame Pirelli for the testing controversy which has hit the sport in the last month, but does blame Mercedes who he says should have turned the offer down.
The 82-year-old, who is publicly known to have a less than friendly relationship with Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn, believes Mercedes were at fault for agreeing to the test when they knew full well that it would fall foul of the regulations.
“If you offer me stolen goods, it’s up to me to decide whether I want to accept them or not,” he told SpeedTV. “It’s not up to anyone to tell me what I should do. I should know what I should do.
“Pirelli were doing the right thing, obviously. They couldn’t get out of a tyre problem. If there had been proper testing, which there should be, they wouldn’t be in this problem.”
When asked if he was backing Pirelli because of their interests in F1 as a supplier and investor through a lucrative track signage deal, he replied: “I don’t care. [That] makes no difference to me.
“What is right, is right, you know. The one thing an unmarried girl has got is the right to say ‘no’. You would have to reckon that Mercedes were in that position.”
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