Former Formula 1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone was detained at an airport in Portugal after a routine inspection found a shotgun that the 95-year-old said he planned to use to shoot clay pigeons.
Ecclestone said he was later released, saying his wife heading into Lisbon from the airport in Cascais to get the proper permits or surrender the gun.
“They asked if I had a blue book, which is apparently the documentation you need, and I told them I never travel with documents like that, any documents at all practically,” Ecclestone told the Daily Mail. “They said they would arrest me, but after what seemed like hours, we sorted it out, but it has been wall-to-wall aggravation.”
Ecclestone said he was surprised the gun was an issue and made it most of the way
through the customs process before it was discovered during a search.
"I had a gun that I was bringing over from Switzerland to Portugal for clay-pigeon shooting. It's as simple as that. I have guns at home there that are licensed," said the man known as the F1 Supremo. "We cleared customs on arriving here – I know the guys there – and they were fine with everything. No problems.
"Then, a policeman afterwards asked to search the bag. It could have been (Ecclestone's 6-year-old son) Ace's fishing tackle for all it looked like, but it wasn't."
It is not the first time a gun in his luggage at an airport has been an issue for Ecclestone. The Englishman was arrested in 2022 near Sao Paulo when authorities discovered a .32-caliber pistol in his bag in 2022 as he was preparing to fly from Brazil to Switzerland. He was released and was able to continue to Switzerland after paying bail.
A motorsports executive for decades, Ecclestone grouped together the TV rights for teams and became the CEO of the Formula One group in 1987, a position he held until an $8 billion takeover by Liberty Media was completed in 2017. Those years were not without controversies, both on the track and off.
Ecclestone praised a number of despots in a 2009 interview with The Times, saying Adolf Hitler "was able to get things done" and questioning the effectiveness of democracy. Those remarks drew outrage from a number of groups, and Ecclestone later apologized.
In 2020, the year in which his title as chairman emeritus of Formula One Group expired, he questioned whether seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton's anti-racism efforts would be effective. He said in a CNN interview that Lewis "is doing a great job" but then saying the initiative wouldn't "do anything good or bad for Formula 1" but rather make people think - something he said people of all races should do since,"Black people are often more racist than white people."
Ecclestone continues to attend Formula 1 races, congratulating winner George Russell after this year's Austria Grand Prix.
Russell was beaten to the finish by Mercedes-Benz teammate Kimi Antonelli on Sunday, Sept. 6 in the Italian Grand Prix. The 20-year-old leads the standings of the Drivers' championship, sitting 66 points ahead of Russell. Hamilton is in third.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ex-Formula 1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone detained at airport because of shotgun
