Former commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone returned to the Formula One paddock last week, for the first time since he was ousted in January, and revealed how little involvement he has had with the new management.

The 86-year-old, who ran Formula One for decades, said he had yet to meet the sport’s new commercial manager Sean Bratches.

“Never met Sean, I met (motorsport manager) Ross (Brawn) for 10 minutes this year and I knew Ross from the past obviously and I feel sorry for (chairman) Chase (Carey) being thrown in the deep end,” the 86-year-old told reporters at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Brawn is a Formula One veteran – a former technical director at Ferrari, principal of Honda’s team and winning the 2009 world championship with his own Brawn outfit before selling to Mercedes, where he was also the boss.

He and Bratches attended the season-opening race in Australia.

Ecclestone was appointed ‘chairman emeritus’, a job with no defined role, after being moved away from the helm and replaced by Carey.

Formula One Management has moved out of its old headquarters into new premises away from Ecclestone.

Asked whether he was acting as a consultant to them, he replied that “they’ve never asked me anything” although he had spoken to Carey yesterday as well as several times in recent weeks.

“I’m busier now than I have been in the past, with the same sort of things. I’m still busy,” added the Briton, who spent time yesterday talking to Red Bull principal Christian Horner and Mercedes’ non-executive chairman Niki Lauda.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.