Bernie Ecclestone has lashed back at seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who is calling on the former F1 supremo to lose his "platform" for being able to speak freely.
The 91-year-old said Hamilton's moralising is a "complete load of rubbish", and said the suggestion that he is too old to have a meaningful opinion is "terribly rude".
Some, though, were confused not only that Ecclestone tried to explain Nelson Piquet's use of a Portuguese 'N-word', but also that he defended Russian president Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine conflict.
"Yes, maybe I'm not sensitive enough," Ecclestone on Saturday told his friend Roger Benoit, the veteran correspondent for the Swiss newspaper Blick.
"I see many things differently, and I say them because I was asked so nicely.
"But I do stand by one statement - Putin was always fair to Formula 1. And I can't say that about all the promoters."
As for Hamilton's rebuke, Ecclestone advised the Mercedes driver to think more carefully next time he launches an attack.
"Lewis has forgotten a lot," he said.
"When Mercedes didn't pay him what he asked for, I immediately said I'd pay the difference. Because Formula 1 needs a person of colour, a Chinese and a woman."
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