Michael Schumacher after the San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola circuit on Sunday

London: Seven-time champion Michael Schumacher should do more to promote Formula One along with other drivers, the sport?s supremo Bernie Ecclestone told The Independent newspaper.

Ecclestone claimed that it was vital for the sport that the drivers connected with the public so it?s waning popularity could be revived.

?The drivers don?t give the public a fair shake,? the 74-year-old told the paper. ?They?re taking a lot of money out of the business, and I?m delighted for them, but it would be nice if they signed a few more autographs, gave a few more interviews.

?Schu is a culprit. I think he does an interview with himself, and if someone wants an interview he just plays them the tape. He?s a very nice person, but people don?t understand him because they can?t get close enough.?

Ecclestone, who formerly owned the Formula One team Brabham, claimed that it was impossible for drivers to speak their minds anymore due to pressure from above.

?Drivers who were more outspoken, like Eddie Irvine and Jacques Villeneuve, were good for the media, and good for us. But now, if drivers say something a bit borderline, the team owner screams at him, so nobody says anything. In the 1970?s the guys didn?t give a damn what they said and did.?

Ecclestone believes that the threatened breakaway championship by the manufacturers who formed the GPWC group will never happen. ?I don?t think it will happen, and I don?t think they even want it to happen,? Ecclestone said.

?You know we never invited the manufacturers into Formula One. They saw it as a showcase, like an enormous car showroom for them to sell their products, and the way they are acting at the moment they?re dirtying the glass, so people can?t see in. Unfortunately these people have the mentality that 90 per cent of 50 is better than 70 per cent of 100.

?It all stems from the fact that their arithmetic is not very good.?

As for the rumour bandied about that Ecclestone was the brains behind the 1963 great train robbery in England which yielded 40 million in modern terms, well there is a link but not in the criminal sense.

?There wasn?t enough money on that train. I could have done something better than that. No that rumour came from the fact Roy James, the guy who drove the getaway car (he received a 30-year jail sentence), had been a racing driver. That?s why they wanted him in the getaway car.

?Anyway, Roy was very friendly with Graham Hill, and when he came out of prison, he asked me for a job. I owned Brabham at the time, but I wasn?t going to let him drive for me.

?Instead, I gave him a trophy to make; he?d also been a silversmith and a goldsmith. That?s still the trophy we give to the promoters each year. He made it. The recipients don?t realise that.?