According to an observer reporting for the Austrian press agency APA, Bernie Ecclestone was “visibly upset” on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The F1 chief executive was back in court, listening to a witness as his corruption trial continued in Munich.<\/p>\n
The witness had advised car manufacturers like Ferrari and Daimler at about the same time as Ecclestone paid Gerhard Gribkowsky the alleged $44 million bribe.<\/p>\n
Ecclestone argues Gribkowsky was effectively extorting him, but the prosecutors say the 83-year-old was in a mood of desperately clinging to power.<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s witness did not seem to help the diminutive Briton’s case.<\/p>\n
The witness said key manufacturers involved in F1 were seriously threatening to split from the series and set up their own motor racing category.<\/p>\n
Some, the witness testified, saw Ecclestone as a “key” to the success of a premier motor racing series, and had no intention of proceeding without him.<\/p>\n
Others were apparently less bothered, or even happy with the thought of Ecclestone no longer being involved, which could have meant the freeing up of more commercial income.<\/p>\n
According to APA, as the translator relayed the testimony to Ecclestone in English, the F1 supremo “shook his head several times, puffed out his cheeks and made notes”.<\/p>\n
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