I LIKE Bernie Ecclestone. He’s far too small, obviously, and his haircut is ridiculous. And he can drive you completely mad by obsessing over idiotically tiny details.

Once, in Monaco, I needed his permission to walk from one side of the city to the other and he wouldn’t give it.

9 Bernie Ecclestone... as a fan of the sport, Jeremy's glad he’s on his way out Credit: Getty Images

Things became so heated, I tried to slam the phone down on him, but before I got the receiver into the cradle, I heard the click and knew Bernie had beaten me to it.

However, when he agrees to do something, you shake hands and he always sticks to the deal. And there’s no question that he turned Formula One into the global powerhouse it is today.

However, as a fan of the sport, I’m glad he’s on his way out because, my God, it’s boring these days.

9 Move along... there is nothing on your Vauxhall Astra that was developed in F1. Nothing Credit: Vauxhall

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They say the technology developed in Formula One filters on to family saloon cars. But that’s rubbish. There is nothing on your Vauxhall Astra that was developed in F1. Nothing.

And now they are wheeling the cars around the pit lane on trolleys so they don’t get the wrong sort of dust on their tyres. When a sport gets that pernickety, it’s not a sport any more. It’s become a weird club which exists only to make the rich old men who run it even richer.

The drivers. The cars. The racing. The fans. They no longer matter, just so long as Heineken gets the correct amount of airtime and the television director knows to make sure the Rolex logo is featured four times in each race.

They say the technology developed in Formula One filters on to family saloon cars. But that’s rubbish. There is nothing on your Vauxhall Astra that was developed in F1. Nothing Jeremy on Formula One failing to excite

You can see the effect this is having very clearly. All over the world, there are empty grandstands and dwindling ­television audiences.

But hey, the sponsors haven’t realised that yet, so they keep arriving in their helicopters, with their guests and their fat cheques, so who cares?

Well, we all will when the television companies stop handing over a ­fortune for the screening rights, because then the sponsors WILL realise the game’s up and that’ll be that.

The only way to rescue the ­situation is for someone to realise that motor racing is supposed to be a spectacle.

It’s supposed to be exciting and noisy and dangerous.

9 Spectacle... we have cricket - the Americans have NASCAR Credit: PA / AP

Happily, the new owner, Liberty Media, is American and in the US they understand a thing or two about spectacle.

Put it this way. They have Las Vegas. We have Blackpool. They have Armageddon. We have Poldark. They have Nascar. We have cricket.

They won’t want the cars being wheeled about on trolleys, or tech that will be fitted one day to a hatchback, and Lewis Hamilton will get fired if he doesn’t crash into his team-mate six times a year.

The boss of the all-conquering ­Mercedes team, Toto Wolff, said that he too is looking forward to the new owners taking over. But not for the same reasons as me.

“There are things we can learn from the American way,” he said. “Particularly in digital areas.”

No, Toto. We don’t care about ­digital. We just want to see a crash.

ACCORDING to the latest research, you can offset the ­negative effects of drinking seven glasses of wine a week by taking a brisk 25-minute walk a day. So I’ve done the maths. I can offset my wine intake by walking every day. To Calcutta.

Daisy, I'm confused

9 Everywhere... but who is Daisy Lowe? Asks Jezza

DAISY LOWE is everywhere these days. On Strictly. At the GQ Awards. In every single newspaper, every day.

And it raises a question. Who is she?

Why Vaz mustn't trot off

9 Parliament needs... 'morons who think they can insert themselves into a couple of Eastern European rent boys and get away with it' Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd

A FEW years ago, I said on television that people visiting India were likely to get the trots, and immediately Keith Vaz was contacted by journalists to see if he was offended.

Obviously, he hadn’t seen the programme but he was definitely offended and called for me to be sacked immediately.

So you’d imagine that I’m sitting here now, rubbing my hands with glee at his very public humiliation.

But I’m not because I believe that if Parliament is to work properly, it should be a reflection of the people it serves.

There should be wise people, gay people, rich people, poor people, fat people, pretty people and morons who think they can insert themselves into a couple of Eastern European rent boys and get away with it.

LIVE SLOW, DIE OLD A SURVEY has found that old people are nowhere near as dangerous on the roads as everyone thinks. Even though we are constantly stuck behind a dithering old fool in a Peugeot, while listening to a report on the radio of how the police have arrested yet another pensioner for driving the wrong way down the M5 for 50 miles, we are told that actually, the elderly are very safe. Well, that’s what the report’s author said, before pouring himself a small schooner of sherry and sitting back in his wipe-down Shackleton armchair to watch another episode of Countdown.

Hinkley could get ugly

9 Ugly... Jezza would rather look at John Prescott than the Russian billionaire's bomb-proof yacht Credit: Rex Features

THE French designer Philippe Starck once made an extremely attractive fruit squeezer.

He has also made some interesting chairs.

However, I’m not sure his impressive talents stretch yet to yachts.

That enormous boat that sailed up the Thames this week is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. I’d rather look at John Prescott.

9 Yacht's French designer Philippe Starck also made this extremely attractive fruit squeezer

God alone knows what possessed its Russian owner to wake up one day and think, ‘Hmmm. That Frenchman who designed my orange squeezer. I shall use him to design my boat’.

Because that’s like asking someone who’s very good at tapestry to design the cooling system in the Hinkley nuclear power station.

It’s not going to work.

And indeed it hasn’t.

IN the Commons this week, Theresa May made fun of Jeremy Corbyn’s recent empty train-seat gaffe by saying: “Even on rolling stock Labour is a ­laughing stock.” I’m not sure but I think that may be the worst joke in the history of all humanity.

9 Not on my lead... don't expect to see Jeremy walking his fox any time soon Credit: Getty Images

APPARENTLY, people have started to keep foxes as pets.

Sellers are charging as much as £1,000 a pop and there’s a ready supply of customers who believe they’re getting an exciting alternative to a dog.

Be warned though. Dogs are descended from wolves and have had centuries of artificial selection to become docile.

Foxes, on the other hand, have a completely different ancestry and are still wild.

If you want an interesting pet, why not get a great white shark

This means they reek to high heaven. And attack children. And enjoy eating furniture. And wiring. And emptying your bin all over the floor for no good reason.

And then buggering off.

If you want an interesting pet, why not get a great white shark.

Like a fox, it’s vicious and unreliable. But at least it doesn’t smell like a Turkish urinal.

BALLS TO LOCAL FOOTIE THERE was a bit of a debate this week about which is better: Non-league football or a Premier League clash between two ginormous titans. Many in the sport seem to think standing up to your knees in mud on a wet Saturday afternoon, watching 22 heffalumps lumber around the pitch – as you try to work out whether to drink your mug of soup or pour it into your wellingtons to warm your feet – is somehow better than, say, today’s Manchester derby. Hmmm. Isn’t that a bit like wondering which is best: A Stones gig at the O2, or a cr*p indie band in a pub in Sheffield?

9 Captain America: Civil War... staggeringly, even worse than Batman v Superman, according to Jezza Credit: Marvel

EARLIER this year, I sat through the Batman v Superman movie and it was like every headache I’d ever had, all rolled into 90 minutes.

I declared it to be unintelligible twaddle and the worst film ever made.

But staggeringly, Captain America: Civil War manages to be even worse.

That’s like being in a wheelie bin that’s bouncing down an endless cliff.

I therefore have a plea. Can we stop now with this idea of superheroes fighting one another.