Formula One commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, on Saturday stoked up controversy by praising Adolf Hitler for being a man who "was able to get things done".

In an interview with The Times newspaper, Ecclestone praised strong leadership and said that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies.

Ecclestone said: "In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done.

"In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator because either he had all these things and knew what was going on and insisted, or he just went along with it... so either way he wasn't a dictator."

Saying he liked "strong leaders" like Margaret Thatcher, Ecclestone suggested that FIA president Max Mosley would make a good Prime Minister.

"I don't think his background would be a problem," said Ecclestone of Mosley, the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.

"Politicians are too worried about elections. We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, he was the only one who could control the country. It was the same (with the Taliban)," added Ecclestone, who in 1997 donated £1 million to the Labour Government.

A spokesman for the board of Deputies of British Jews said: "Mr Ecclestone's comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers are quite bizarre. He says 'Politics are not for me' and we are inclined to agree."