Formulation 1 has engaged its KERS mode in an try and put some critical distance between itself and its former CEO Bernie Ecclestone, who stated he would “take a bullet” for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Talking on British TV’s Good Morning Britain, Bernie described Putin as a “first-class particular person” and claimed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have been averted if Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy had achieved extra within the run-up to the battle.

Ecclestone, who stepped down from his place as head of F1 in 2017, and Putin turned buddies after Russia was added to the sequence’ calendar in 2014. And judging by his feedback on the ITV present, Putin’s current actions haven’t spoiled that friendship.

“I’d nonetheless take a bullet for him. I’d slightly it didn’t harm, but when it does I’d nonetheless take a bullet, as a result of he’s a first-class particular person,” 91-year-old Ecclestone informed presenter Kate Garraway. “What he’s doing is one thing that he believed was the correct factor for Russia.”

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Ecclestone went on to criticize Zelenskiy, main Garraway to ask if the British billionaire believed that the battle may have been prevented by extra motion on the a part of the Ukraine president slightly than Putin altering the course of his personal actions.

“Completely,” Ecclestone replied. “And I’m fairly positive Ukraine, in the event that they’d needed to get out of it correctly, may have achieved.”

Understandably, F1 has moved quickly to clarify its disgust on the feedback from a person who as soon as praised Hitler’s potential to “get issues achieved.”

“The feedback made by Bernie Ecclestone are his private views and are in very stark distinction to the place of the fashionable values of our sport,” a spokesman for Formulation 1 informed the Guardian.