“Australia is just as important to us as Monaco and has been for an awful long time, so we hate to think that we were going to lose Australia,” said the Englishman in a recent interview with the Herald Sun.
“We have been together a long time and it's like one of those long marriages; it would be bad to end in divorce,” he added, while insisting that parting ways was never something that he wanted in the first place. However, will the Australian officials find it hard to pay the annual fees related to their F1 race, there would be no other option but to terminate the deal that runs out at the end of 2015.
“If the other partner wishes, we wouldn't start fighting,” he continued. “In the case of Melbourne, if the product is too expensive for them then we understand that. And when the contract comes to an end, there is no need to renew it. We wouldn't force somebody to buy something they don't want.”
Additionally, Ecclestone admitted that a solution for the financial troubles experienced by the Victorian officials nowadays could have been found a while back, if someone had decided to build a permanent venue for grand prix only competitions. Instead, Melbourne stuck to their initial part-street circuit plan and the costs got higher.
His comments come less than a day after FIA president Jean Todt had told reporters during a road safety campaign in Melbourne that Formula 1 must absolutely keep Australia on its calendar.
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