Formula 1 has been a beloved motorsport for decades, and celebrities often enjoy watching the track action. Musician George Harrison, known from The Beatles, was a big fan of the premier class. Former driver David Coulthard shares a ‘special’ encounter with the Beatle in which he played a self-written song about former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone for the Scot.
David Coulthard raced in Formula 1 between 1994 and 2008, and his time in the premier class was anything but dull. One of the most extraordinary moments of the Scot’s motorsport career, however, took place off the track, when Beatle and musician George Harrison played a self-written song about Bernie Ecclestone for him.
“Musicians always came to watch F1, and a surreal moment was when George Harrison was still alive,” Coulthard tells Motorsport Magazine. “We went out to dinner in Melbourne with Norbert Haug (former Mercedes boss), and George was there too. In this small restaurant, in the Crown Casino in Melbourne, he played a song he had written called ‘Bernie Says‘. It was never released.”
George Harrison’s Song about Ecclestone
Former F1 boss Ecclestone was the commercial rights holder of Formula 1 until 2017, when American Liberty Media took over the rights. “The chorus was: ‘Bernie says, do this, Bernie says…’ it was just to show that Bernie was the sole ruler of F1, that everything that would happen was because Bernie had decided it,” Coulthard continues. “But he did it in a musical, quirky, Beatles, George Harrison way. That was really a special moment!”
However, it didn’t stop with the song about Ecclestone. Harrison had also made a music video right away. “George played the song from the CD player and he also had a Panasonic video camera, a kind of thick iPad, with his own ‘film’ for the song. He loved the sport and often went along with Barry Sheene and James Hunt. He clearly loved a bit of madness!”
