Horner e Perez scommettono – e l’ex boss della Formula 1 Ecclestone vince!

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Bernie Ecclestone has always had the right instinct. This was also the case in a bet between Red Bull team boss Christian Horner and Red Bull driver Sergio Perez. The bet was about Perez’s position in the starting grid for the Japan Grand Prix of the Formula 1 season 2024.

“It was about whether he would make it to the front row,” explains Horner. “Because up until then, he had only managed to qualify in fourth place at Suzuka.” (More on this in the Formula 1 database!)

But this time Perez performed better than ever in the Suzuka qualifying session: he came in second behind his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, and with only 0.066 seconds behind, he was much closer than in many other occasions. This meant Perez won the bet against Horner.

However, Perez did not keep the bet money for himself, as Horner points out: “When he won the bet, he told me that he owed Bernie Ecclestone the exact same amount. So he passed the money directly to Bernie. Bernie was the big winner of ‘Checo’ [Perez] making it to the front row!”

Horner, who was Ecclestone’s best man at his wedding to Fabiana Flosi in 2012, greatly admires this: “Good old Bernie is still making money, even though he’s no longer around.” However, Horner does not reveal the exact amount of money involved in the bet.

Ecclestone had controlled Formula 1 from the 1970s and turned it into a global sport over several decades. This made Formula 1 a billion-dollar business and Ecclestone himself a wealthy man.

After Liberty Media acquired Formula 1, Ecclestone was relieved of his duties in 2017. The now 93-year-old only sporadically visits the paddock.

However, money remains a recurring theme in the life of the longtime Formula 1 boss: in 2023, Ecclestone was convicted of tax fraud in England. However, his role in the bribery scandal surrounding the sale of Formula 1 shares is much more famous: Ecclestone managed to get the case against him dropped in 2014 with a payment of around 75 million euros.

Forbes estimates Ecclestone’s total wealth at around 2.2 billion euros.