Enlarge imageLONDON (Reuters) - Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who represents commercial rights holder CVC, has been criticised by board member Martin Sorrell as being "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," Sorrell told the Daily Mail on Saturday.
"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 board member of the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
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."
The Briton later apologised unreservedly for the comments.
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Sorrell, chief executive of the world's largest advertising group WPP, criticised Ecclestone for comments he made this week after former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore was handed 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) football club Queen's Park Rangers, had been excessively punished and should appeal.
"In my opinion it was quite harsh on Flavio," he said.
Renault have been handed 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 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.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Sonia Oxley)
