{"id":18963,"date":"2013-08-07T07:11:49","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T11:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=18963"},"modified":"2013-08-07T07:11:49","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T11:11:49","slug":"vettel-backs-ecclestone-amid-legal-troubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/vettel-backs-ecclestone-amid-legal-troubles\/","title":{"rendered":"Vettel backs Ecclestone amid legal troubles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World champion Sebastian Vettel has jumped to the defence of F1&#8217;s embattled chief executive.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px;\" alt=\"Sebastian-Vettel-1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2013-rif-images\/f1-2013-drivers\/Sebastian-Vettel-1.jpg\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>Already under fire by German prosecutors over the Gerhard Gribkowsky bribe affair, Ecclestone&#8217;s troubles worsened this week when a London court ordered his bosses at F1 owner CVC to release hundreds of documents about the sale of the sport years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The Financial Times said the documents relate to German media group Constantin Medien&#8217;s $171 million lawsuit claiming F1 was undervalued when it was sold to CVC in 2006.<\/p>\n<p>Most figures in the paddock have been reluctant to comment on Ecclestone&#8217;s troubles, which could end the 82-year-old&#8217;s decades-long reign over formula one.<\/p>\n<p>But Vettel is quoted by Germany&#8217;s Bild newspaper: &#8220;The bottom line is that he is the one who brought formula one to such a high level.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And Mercedes&#8217; Nico Rosberg reportedly added: &#8220;He has done so much for this sport for so many years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to media speculation, one potential successor for Ecclestone is Christian Horner, currently Vettel&#8217;s team boss at Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p>But the Briton played down the prospect, insisting he is &#8220;fully focused on what I&#8217;m doing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope he (Ecclestone) goes on for a long time to come,&#8221; Horner is quoted by the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The business, as it is today, is because of the way he has run it and operated it.\u00a0 It is unimaginable for him not to be there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World champion Sebastian Vettel has jumped to the defence of F1&#8217;s embattled chief executive. Already under fire by German prosecutors over the Gerhard Gribkowsky bribe affair, Ecclestone&#8217;s troubles worsened this week when a London court ordered his bosses at F1 owner CVC to release hundreds of documents about the sale of the sport years ago. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,128,3236,2637,5262,5340,2638,4,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18964,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18963\/revisions\/18964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}