| Anybody but Michael Schumacher. That is the motto of the Ecclestone family. With the 2004 Formula One season barely started, the Ferrari driver looks invincible. The sport is being written off as boring and predictable and the fans are deserting in droves. This is what is alarming Ecclestone, 73, the ringmaster of the whole F1 circus. After the recent Melbourne Grand Prix, he said: "Things have got to change. It's a disaster. This is not the sort of day we were expecting or wanted to see. Ferrari were not supposed to be going this fast. They were supposed to have all sorts of problems with tyres and their engines but it doesn't look as if they have." Still, the Suffolk trawler skipper's son has not done too badly from what he has built up at F1. He began racing in 1949. An accident two years later ended his driving career but he went into team management and eventually took over the whole of F1. A 1999 bond issue and the sale of 75% of the business a year later netted Ecclestone £1.9 billion. He has transferred the money to Jersey-based trusts controlled by his wife Slavica, 45, a Croatian-born former model. A tough game of poker involving the three banks that own 75% of F1, Ecclestone with his 25%, and the giant auto groups that want more of the action resulted recently in a compromise avoiding the threat of a breakaway rival championship. The 25% in Ecclestone hands is probably worth slightly less this year in the light of the compromise but he has some choice assets, including a £75m, 85-metre yacht being built in Turkey, a £12m Falcon jet and his own hotel and chalet at Gstaad. The Ecclestones live in a £5m London home. The man who never carries a credit card and pays with cash is a generous donor to charity, always anonymously, to the tune of about £50m a year. He has been described by BusinessF1 editor Tom Rubython as "one of the few men in the world who could write a cheque for $1 billion and not have to ring his bank manager". His magazine valued Ecclestone at £2.323 billion last December and we do not differ from this expert assessment.
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2003: £2,400m
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