MOTORSPORT: Formula 1 post-Ecclestone

Bernie Ecclestone has been nudged out of the 'driver's seat' of the Formula 1 business.

Not just across the front as a passenger, but to a back seat.

American company Liberty Media is in the process of taking control of F1 in a US$8 billion deal (about half of which involves taking on existing debt) that could be completed by the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in two months.

Liberty's Chase Carey – previously Rupert Murdoch's main man at 21st Century Fox – has been around F1 since September as chairman and now becomes chief executive as well.

Carey's bringing in Ross Brawn as sporting and technical boss. Brawn is eminently qualified, having been a big part of all Michael Schumacher's seven world titles and Jenson Button's, as well as laying the foundations for the success of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes in the past three years.

On the commercial side, which has been 86-year-old Ecclestone's domain for 40 years, Liberty – the empire of John 'Darth Vader' Malone – has recruited Berlin-born Sean Bratches, who has been instrumental in the success of global sports channel ESPN.

Ecclestone becomes F1's chairman emeritus. He says he doesn't know what that means, except that he's no longer F1's day-to-day supremo.

He's used the term "deposed", although that's a combination of his dark humour and famous exaggeration.

Liberty couldn't afford to cut the unashamedly-dictatorial Ecclestone adrift completely; he knows the business like nobody else.

He'll be an 'adviser' to the new board.

The new American regime wants to grow F1 in the areas that have been seen as Ecclestone's blind side – the digital world and social media, with new and younger audiences.

There is also talk of expanding the season calendar to 25 GPs, with perhaps five in the US; of 'Super Bowl'-style promotion for each; and fostering much more gambling on the sport.

F1's teams have generally welcomed the arrival of Liberty, a buyer they see as having a plan, rather than the majority shareholder of the past decade – private equity group CVC – that has multiplied its investment many times over without contributing anything.

But the record 21 GPs last year already stretched, even exhausted, the participants.

Although the race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas has been relatively successful, F1 has a chequered history in the US. Can a country accustomed to often-contrived side-by-side racing on oval tracks really digest more European-style road racing in which processions by the dominant are the norm.

And will the traditional F1 audience wear Americanisation of the sport?

Who's going to foot the bill for the 'Super Bowl' hype? Melbourne's already dropping $60 million a year.

And gambling? Has its explosion been good for any sport? The evidence from cricket, for example, is very negative.

Liberty's takeover may be the start of some exciting times, but one media empire – Germany's Kirch – already went bust when it saw ownership of F1 as its road to even greater riches.

Liberty will be much more hands-on, but success is no lay down misere.