Bower - No Angel: The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone

Bernie! Bernie! Darling! A tall, beautiful black girl is smothering the diminutive man with kisses. Trapped against the wall of a rickety metal cage, the seventy-nine-year-old smiles up to the exuberant model, Hi, Naomi. Silently watching from the corner of the descending makeshift lift is a lined face hidden behind sunglasses and a baseball hat. Seconds later, the doors clang open. Thirty screaming cameramen greet Mick Jagger, Naomi Campbell and Bernie Ecclestone as they walk into the Monaco sunlight. Where can we watch the race, Bernie? shouts Jagger. My motorhome, replies the impish man pushing burly cameramen from his path. A twenty-four-stone bodyguard stands helpless on the side. Pursued by the cameras, the group heads towards the security gates guarding the motorhome a grey, black-windowed, air-conditioned, sound-insulated, leather-upholstered coach equipped with concealed cameras to cover every angle parked at the entrance of the Paddock, the exclusive harbour area squeezed between a hill and the sea reserved for Formula Ones players. Looking twenty years younger than his age thanks to the teenage cut of his hair, Ecclestone is enjoying the unpredictability. Water? Ecclestone offers his guests, as they sit back to watch the beginning of the sixty-eighth Monaco Grand Prix.

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Forty minutes earlier, Bernie Ecclestone had fought his way out of the same lift facing a bigger scrum. This way, Jennifer! the paparazzi screamed. Jennifer, we love you! roared the crowd from the hill and stands overlooking the race circuit. Jennifer Lopez had unexpectedly dropped in to see Bernie. Jennifer wants to see the cars, explained Sir Philip Green, the retailer, and Lopezs host on Lionheart, his 206-foot yacht moored nearby. In three days Green would be in London to open a store in Knightsbridge and any publicity attendant on the Hollywood star and Formula One was valuable. Okay, Ill help, said Ecclestone, abandoning the lobster lunch he had personally bought that morning in a Monaco supermarket. Side by side, preceded by a wall of backwards-lurching photographers, Ecclestone, Lopez and Green had headed towards the pits, the twelve garages where mechanics were preparing the cars for that afternoons Grand Prix.

Theyre so small, cooed Lopez, gazing at the bare axles of Robert Kubicas Renault. Where are the wheels?

Theyve been sold, quipped Ecclestone.

I couldnt get into that car, J-Lo laughed. The driving seat is so small. Wed squeeze you in, laughed Green, and then sew your clothes on. Thanks for the publicity, Bernie, Renaults chief said.

Ecclestone and Lopez moved on to the adjacent Ferrari pit. Pictures of J-Lo alongside the red car were the publicists dream. It justified spending $400 million on Ferraris for nineteen races in just one year.

Twenty minutes before the race, the mood was tense. Visitors were usually unwelcome but the rule was broken for the man who had made everyone rich. Hi, Bernie, greeted the white-haired man among the crowd outside the Ferrari stop. Good to see you, Michael, replied Ecclestone. Hows your daughter, Bernie? Great, replied Ecclestone, being pushed on.

Michael Douglas is a good man, said Ecclestone seconds later, regretting that he had not spent more time with the actor who had flown over from the Cannes film festival.