Ecclestone, now aged 92, left his role asཧ F1 ch𝐆ief executive in 2017 when US-based Liberty Media took over.

Since then, Netflix’s ‘Drive To Surv🐟ive’ series has taken the sport to new audiences and, this year, F1 will hold three races in the US including the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

“My opinion is that 18 r🌺aces is enough,” Ecclestone told the about the r🌠ecord-breaking 24 grand prix calendar planned for 2024.

“We did 20 and I often thought that tha🉐t was a bit too much. Beca▨use you have to think of the teams. 

“Before long, they will have to employ double staff. With 22 or 23 races ther💟e will be too many d🍨ivorces. It is a matter of when.

“I can understand the commercial people b💮ecause they can say they are signing long-time agreements and that apparently makes the company they work for a lot more money. 

“They can say they have 10-year contracts or whatever. So what they are doing is💃 100 per cent right for them at the moꦯment commercially.

“But without any shadow of a doubt I would stick to 18 ﷺprestigious races. That’s because we don’t know, however long-term the contracts are oওn paper. 

“We don’t kno🔯w wh🍒ether they will suddenly decide that it isn’t working too well and stop.

“Singapore were about to stop. They phoned me and 🅰asked me what I thought. I said they should see how it all works out but don’t 🗹stop now. I moved it from 18 to 20. 

“I don’t♛ want to make excuses for myself, but that was at a time [when] we were moving it out of Europe to the rest of the world.”

Stefano Domenicali is now the 💎CEO of Formula 1. Ecclestone remarked: “Stefano called me when he got the job. I told him that when I was running it as chief executive that I m🌸ade the calls. 

“Nobody from [the former owners of F1] ever compla𒁏ined about that — they let me get on with🦄 what I thought was best at the time. 

“I💯 don’t k♛now what Stefano’s position is. I think he is a little bit more aware of what the people in America think.

“I think you can see that with the races in America that they 🌺are doing — which I think is completely mad. 

“The one in Miami — the way they ran that was mad, trying to be Amer🥀ican rather than the way I did it, which was trying to be pure Formula One as it was, rather than as it could ✅be.

“Maybe t😼hey are completely right; maybe I was wrong trying to keep it more Formula One. 

“I watch every practice session and every race and I look and I think, ‘My God are we trying to show Formula One or are we tryiౠng to show other things?’

“Netflix has captured them a little bit and they follow that a bit too much. Netflix is in the enterta♌inment business as long as it suits them. It’s not like our old broadcasters who have been with us forev🌸er.”