Bernie Ecclestone: '2015 absence was Hockenheim wake-up'

Bernie Ecclestone is putting pressure on Hockenheim to up its game in order to secure Germany's future on the Formula 1 calendar.

Hope that the Nurburgring might bounce back from its troubles is now all but gone, but F1 supremo Ecclestone said that he preferred to see Germany sit out a year in 2015 than agree a cut-price deal for a Hockenheim stand-in race.

"We wanted to wake Hockenheim up a little bit," he told the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

"They are still 20 years behind the times when I compare it to other places."

Ecclestone said the existing contract, set for two more races in 2016 and 2018, is "not very good", adding that whether Germany has a future in F1 is "in principle a question of money".