Enlarge imageBy Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) - Bernie Ecclestone hit back on Saturday after the head of the world's largest advertising group said the Formula One supremo was "totally out of touch with reality" over the sport's race-fixing scandal.
"First we had Hitler did good, now we have cheating is acceptable," WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell told British newspaper the Daily Mail.
"Where will it end? His latest comments are yet another example, I'm afraid, of Bernie being totally out of touch with reality," added the Briton, a non-executive director of private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
CVC control Formula One's commercial rights and are effectively Ecclestone's bosses.
Ecclestone, 78, caused a storm in July when, in an interview with The Times newspaper, he praised Adolf Hitler's ability to "get things done."
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"The comments I made about Hitler...I apologised because they were taken completely wrong," he told BBC television. "As far as cheating, I haven't made any comments.
"Everybody's entitled to their opinion. Why should his (Sorrell's) opinion be more important than mine? He's not involved in the sport," he added, saying that Sorrell was not involved with CVC.
"He doesn't know, he doesn't come to races, he doesn't know the people that are involved."
LIFETIME BAN
Sorrell's comments came after former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore was given a lifetime ban from the sport.
Ecclestone told reporters on Thursday that the flamboyant Italian, a friend and business partner in English Championship (second division) soccer club Queen's Park Rangers, had been excessively punished and should appeal.
"Giving somebody life -- they don't even do that for murder," he said on Saturday.
Renault have been given a suspended permanent ban from the sport after Brazilian Nelson Piquet was found to have crashed deliberately in last year's Singapore race to bring out the safety car and help Spanish team mate Fernando Alonso to win.
The team's title sponsor ING, who had planned to quit at the end of the season, announced on Thursday that they were withdrawing immediately.
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
