Sport's ringmaster on torture, democracy, hobbits, sex scandals and why he has never taken a mistress...

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone may be willing to admit that he is "very ignorant" in certain matters, but it is clear he has no intention of relinquishing his cast-iron grip over the sport for the foreseeable future.

The 77-year-old has ruled the top flight for some three decades now as president and CEO of both Formula One Management and Formula One Administration, after creating the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA) back in 1972. Over the years he has developed a reputation as a man whom it would perilous to cross.

"Me? A bully? At my height?" he protested in a revealing interview with the Daily Mail. "Well, it's true that small people normally try to compensate by being overbearing. You have to stand up for yourself as a kid in school and that goes on through life.

"Do short men have larger brains? If you are an average hobbit you need to be a little bit smarter to stay alive.

"In the old days it was easier to be dictatorial, but now in Formula 1 we have more of a democracy. I hate democracy as a political system - it stops you getting things done. I think people should have decisions made for them. Torture is just an old-fashioned way of getting things done.

"A good dictator is better for a country than a democracy. Democracy in Britain leads to confusion and bad compromises. In a democracy, the Prime Minister is always influenced by someone or some group or the press. I myself have never voted. What's the point?"

The 'hobbit' reference came in response to criticism from the residents of the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad, after Ecclestone raised the prices of drinks in the town's Olden Hotel, which he owns, allegedly in an effort to keep out undesirable locals. Going one step further still, the local newspaper likened him to an 18,000-year-old Indonesian hobbit found by anthropologists in 2004.

"The truth is I didn't know what a hobbit was," he admitted. "I'm very ignorant, so I had to look it up. Then I realised I was definitely a hobbit because they are minuscule and brilliant, and so am I!

"I don't know what the price of drinks is in my hotel, because I never buy any. I make it a policy never to give anything away. If stuck-up people in Gstaad and elsewhere don't like me, I don't care - I come from a line of 18,000-year-old hobbits. In any case, I don't go into town. I hide out in my house nearby with my wife.

"Slavica likes parties and stays out in Gstaad longer than I do. I don't like that sort of thing. The worst thing you could do to me would be to send me on holiday - doing nothing would kill me."

The sport's ringmaster has been married for 25 years to Croatian-born former model Slavica Radic, who at 6ft 2in tall to his 5ft 3in practically dwarfs him. The couple met whilst she was modeling for Armani in Italy, and at 28 years his junior he admits they have somewhat different tastes.

"I liked her because she was attractive and younger," he acknowledged. "I didn't want anyone older; I didn't see much point in that.

"Slavica is from Croatia; these people have more character and passion. Slavica is a good wife and mother and a bit mad. If she is upset with you, she lets you know about it.

"She moans all the time. She doesn't think I should have a [driving] licence - me a Formula 1 man! The trouble is, she is a back-seat driver and she says I go too fast.

"Why do you think people are faithful? It's only because of fear; fear of the financial disaster of a divorce. I asked Slavica about the possibility of me having a mistress, but she didn't like the idea of that, so I gave it up. It would have been nothing but trouble."

The couple have two daughters together, model and TV presenter Tamara and 18-year-old Petra, as well as homes in Chelsea and Gstaad, a yacht and two private jets. There was also a house in Sardinia, but Ecclestone sold it.

"I got rid of it because they were kidnapping rich people," he explained. "I was worried, as I knew if I got kidnapped my wife wouldn't pay to get me back, so I thought we'd better leave!"

There are similarly rumours that he was offered a CBE but turned it down as he deemed the honour to be not sufficiently prestigious for a man of his standing and achievements. When influential friends lobbied Buckingham Palace in an effort to secure him a knighthood, the Palace is said to have bluntly refused.

"Unlike Mick Jagger and people I have never taken drugs," he reasoned, "and, unlike Sean Connery, I pay all my taxes in Britain. Anyway, I don't give a damn."

From undeniably humble origins as the son of a North Sea trawler man, Ecclestone quit school at 16 to go and work at the local gasworks and pursue his hobby of motorcycling. He began racing in Formula 3 and later managed Stuart Lewis-Evans, who was killed in the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix after his engine exploded, and the sport's only ever posthumous title-winner, 1970 F1 world champion Jochen Rindt. Over the intervening years Formula 1, he fears - or at least its leading personalities - has rather lost its character.

"Living on the edge made the drivers of the past interesting people," he stressed. "Now, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton feel they have to keep up appearances for the sponsors.

"Everything has changed, hasn't it? Racing has become one of the last well-behaved sports. There are not enough sex scandals."