In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Mr Ecclestone defended his weekend comments to a British newspaper that Hitler 'got things done.'

Mr Ecclestone said he had not intended to invoke Hitler's name in the interview with London's Times newspaper on Saturday.

'It's probably my fault in that I got dragged into something I wasn't supposed to discuss - we got out of F1 into something else,' Mr Ecclestone said.

Mr Ecclestone does not regret praising Hitler's leadership 'except as usual things were taken a little bit wrong.'

'He brought a country that was bankrupt into a country that was very strong and that was really demonstrating what someone could do if they had the power and didn't have to keep back and referring every five minutes,'

Mr Ecclestone said Monday. 'The trouble with politicians and democracy is they all the time have to compromise, they can't do what they want to do because there is somebody in opposition. It certainly takes a lot longer to do something.

'I regret that it didn't come out like that, upsetting people is the last thing I wanted to do, obviously.'

Mr Ecclestone said he was only being positive about Hitler's leadership of Nazi Germany between 1932 and '38, adding: 'After that the guy was obviously a lunatic.'

Hitler presided over the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews in World War II. -- AP