'It can't work at Ferrari for him... they'd go behind his back!': In a rip-roaring read, Bernie Ecclestone on Lewis Hamilton's future, his best driver of all time and THAT £50m jewellery heist

• e-mail

Bernie Ecclestone does not believe Lewis Hamilton should move to Ferrari and he is happy to reel off why.

'If I were Lewis I would stay at Mercedes,' says the arch dealmaker over lunch in central London, addressing what Hamilton, 35, should do when his current £40million-a-year deal expires at the end of the season.

'He is comfortable there. He is in charge. He's got the guy who turns the lights on and off supporting him [team principal Toto Wolff].

Bernie Ecclestone does not believe Lewis Hamilton should move to Ferrari and reveals why

'It wouldn't work at Ferrari for him. They are Italians. He would have to really learn the language so he'd know what they were saying behind his back, for a start.

'The problem with all the Italians, they don't want a fight, don't want an argument with anyone. Instead of saying to someone who is doing a bad job, 'Sort yourself out or I'll sort you out — please yourself, but I want results,' they say, 'Let's have dinner so we can talk about it. Be friends'.

'If I were a team boss I'd sign Max [Verstappen from Red Bull]. He's quick and easy to deal with. If I had Lewis I'd just tell him what time the next race starts and say be there for then. Apart from that he could do whatever he wants.

'I'd cut his pay and let him do his own sponsorship, anything. Mercedes try to rein him in a bit. I'd give him total freedom.'

Ecclestone is enjoying a burger in a regular haunt in the middle of a busy week that ends with the 89-year-old former Formula One boss and his 43-year-old wife Fabiana flying off to their place in her native Brazil.

If you thought the pace of his life might have slowed three years after he was deposed as chief executive-cum-dictator by Liberty Media when they took over his life's work, then you are only partly right.

The phone still rings. Friends, acquaintances, princes, commoners, chancers and, as it turns out, the Romanian authorities are all in touch. The last of those are helping him with his enquiries into the £50million jewellery heist at the Kensington home of his daughter Tamara last December, a crime yet to be solved. Seven months short of his 90th birthday, Ecclestone, with many business interests, remains in the thick of as much action as he can find.

But, before roaming widely, he has more to say about Hamilton, adding: 'He is looking for what he's going to do when he stops racing. Fashion, music, all that. I think Lewis is not sure of himself in general and that extends to his driving, when he wants to know what sort of time his team-mate is doing or what's happening with the Ferrari guys. He's not terribly confident.'

Hamilton, a six-time world champion, can match Michael Schumacher's record of seven titles

Hamilton, the six-time world champion goes in search of Michael Schumacher's record seven titles whenever the season, hit by coronavirus, starts. He is 10lb lighter than he was last year, down to 11st 5lb, after a rigorous winter training regime. Equalling the great German is high in the English driver's mind, but Ecclestone does not believe it should be.

'There is no need for him to worry about winning one more championship than Schumacher. If he wants to stop racing, he should not carry on just for that reason. He should carry on because he wants to drive.'

Hamilton's deeds, including 84 wins and 88 poles, raise questions about his place in the list of motor-racing greatness. Who would Bernie, with his shrewd eyes across 70 years of contenders, rate highest?

'Alain Prost,' he says. 'He never got a lot of support from the team. They didn't get all that [much] help from the pit wall, either. The lights went out and he was on his own. He had to look after the tyres on his own, the brakes too, and he was bloody quick. He nearly won two more championships. That would have been six but the figures are immaterial.

Seven months short of his 90th birthday, Ecclestone remains in the thick of action

'I'd also say Nelson [Piquet], who did well in a car that was OK. Stirling [Moss] you'd have to say yes to the top four. And [Juan Manuel] Fangio — he got the job done.

'Lewis is very good. Top four or five, or whatever, but it is hard to say this guy is better than so and so. Lewis has the best equipment and best team. The best everything.'

He most certainly does, while Ferrari are continuing to make a mockery of their vast resources with mistakes compounded by feuding between their two drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, the established driver and the younger man vying for No 1 status.

All this is taking place under new team principal Mattia Binotto, a graduate of Ferrari's own production line. He is a distinguished boffin but is he a leader? 'No, he's an engineer,' says Ecclestone. 'They need someone in there who can make people understand that when you say something it happens. Not maybe. Or a discussion.

'I would have got Flavio Briatore to run Ferrari. Flavio would do what he always did with Benetton and Renault: he'd steal the best people from other teams. The problem is that in the end Flavio would have let people think Ferrari belonged to him.'

Ecclestone is a pal of Vettel. They hit it off and play backgammon together. Ecclestone offers advice privately. He sticks up for him whenever he can publicly. But he admits this of the German, who was off colour and accident-prone last year: 'He did a s****y job and I told him so. He finished where he deserved [fifth]. Ferrari favoured [Charles] Leclerc, 100 per cent. They fall in love with a driver there and it is hard for the other guy. A lot of things went on against Sebastian.

'I think we have seen the best of Leclerc. He has done well and will continue to do so but I don't think we'll see anything spectacular. The business in Canada upset Sebastian [when a penalty for squeezing Hamilton after running off track cost him the win]. He thought Ferrari should have backed him more and got stuck in. He's right.'

Ecclestone moves from burger to coconut souffle. As usual he is on water, not wine. He keeps himself trim and is smartly turned out in his trademark pressed white shirt. One thing is noticeably different — his John Lennon-style glasses are gone, the result of laser eye surgery.

Hamilton is 10lb lighter than he was last year, down to 11st 5lb, after a rigorous training regime

He covers a lot of ground in a short time. He awaits an update on the break-in at his daughter's £70m, 55-room mansion on a road known as 'Billionaire's Row'. A Romanian mother and son, Maria Mester, 47, and Emil-Bogdan Savastru, 29, have been charged with conspiracy to commit burglary. Mester, a cleaner, denied the charge in court recently.

Rings, earrings and an £80,000 Cartier bangle from Tamara's wedding to businessman Jay Rutland were all taken.

'We don't know exactly what happened and the police don't know,' says Ecclestone, hinting that the arrested pair may be part of a wider plot. 'Two people have been locked up but they're not talking. We have the top people in Romania looking into it. So far the Romanians can't explain it. They don't know the people at the moment.'

I ask if he is paying for the help in Romania. 'No, we just know the people there,' he says. The glasses may have gone but his humour has not. I suggest £50m is an insane amount of bling to have lying around the house. 'The good thing for me,' he says, 'is that I have explained to my wife that this is why I don't buy her expensive jewellery.'

Ecclestone is a pal of Sebastian Vettel (left) - they hit it off and play backgammon together

Might he be tempted to buy back the sport one day? 'No,' he says. 'If the people at Liberty asked me to run the company I'd say no, 100 per cent. It would be a case of trying to dismantle all the things they have put together.

'They have their own way of doing it. Chase [Carey, the current chief executive] had allegedly been Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man, which he wasn't, and they thought it would be easy, like a normal business.

'They have found out it isn't. For me, every deal is like buying and selling a used car. Formula One needs a used car salesman.'

Ecclestone was not planning to be in Melbourne for this weekend even before the Grand Prix fell foul of the virus. But does he miss the venues, the glitz and glamour, hopping from one track to the next, the excitement of Formula One's host cities and all that comes with it?

'Times change,' he says. 'I'll be 90 if I hang on a bit longer. Whereas I used to go around the world seeing which young ladies I could pull, well, if I could pull them now it's not going to be much help, is it?'