[PapaofGags]

Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has blamed Bernie Ecclestone for creating some of the problems that Formula 1’s new owners are facing as they attempt to renew race contracts.

Over the past two years the new management has successfully renewed deals of several races, with Azerbaijan the latest to agree to a contract extension

However, the contracts of the German, Spanish, Italian, Mexican and British GPs are all coming to an end, and no renewals have been agreed as of yet.

In addition to the inevitable differences of opinion over fees, Mexico and Spain both have issues with the public funding that has hitherto supported the races.

Maffei said that former F1 boss Ecclestone had not helped matters by suggesting that races were paying too much under the very deals that he originally put together.

“And we got a lot of blow back, partly because we’re public now and they can see the prices, and also partly because Bernie suggested to a lot of them that they were overpaying. That didn’t help the cause.

“Bernie had done a very good job, arguably too good a job, and had drained the promoters,”