“I’d pay the difference in $20.8 Million” – Bernie Ecclestone claims he promised to pay Lewis Hamilton salary to make him stay in F1

Bernie Ecclestone claims that he had offered to pay the salary of Lewis Hamilton when he joined Mercedes in 2013.

Ex-F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has claimed that he had offered to pay the salary of Lewis Hamilton when he had joined the Mercedes team in 2013.

According to Ecclestone, Mercedes had refused to pay Hamilton what he had asked for in 2013 and thus Ecclestone had offered to pay the difference.

This comes after the seven-time world champion voiced his opinion on the racism row that emerged following the comments made by Nelson Piquet.

Bernie Ecclestone has just compared racial slurs directed towards Lewis Hamilton to himself being called short and that he should just brush it off… He’s then gone on and said how he’d take a bullet for Putin 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

— Pete Dixon (@PeteDixon91) June 30, 2022

Hamilton said, “I don’t know why we are continuing to give these older voices a platform because they’re speaking upon our sport and we’re looking to go somewhere completely different.”

Following this Ecclestone called the Mercedes star “incredibly rude.”

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“Lewis Hamilton has forgotten everything” – Ecclestone

Furthermore, Ecclestone had also defended Piquet for what he had said in the interview in 2021. The former F1 boss said that Hamilton is full of rubbish.

He claimed that Lewis has forgotten a lot. When the Briton had joined the Mercedes team in 2013 he was earning around $20.8 Million. Which according to Ecclestone was not what Hamilton had asked for.

At that time, Ecclestone claims that he had offered to pay the difference in Hamilton’s salary. Ecclestone said, “Lewis has forgotten a lot.”

“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.”

The F1 Supremo had also said that he would take a bullet for Russian President Vladimir Putin talking about the invasion of Ukraine.

He said, “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.”

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