Ecclestone's peculiarity is his greatest weapon

Keen observers of the Lesser-Spotted Ecclestone have enjoyed rich pickings recently as this occasionally elusive creature presents himself more regularly in the wild.

Armchair experts and those who pontificate about Formula 1 from afar like to think that the sport's 85-year-old ringmaster is going a bit soft in the head - citing, for instance, his recent declaration that a particular F1 venue is "a shithole".

Wrong, wrong, wrong. He's simply working to his own agenda, one that we often cannot quite divine as he emerges from his lair, garbed in his uniform of black trousers and crisply ironed white shirt, and grips-and-grins-and-spins his way down the paddock with an army of camera-toting Eccle-twitchers in tow.

The Bernard's every movement fascinates and it was ever thus; type "Montoya broke head" into YouTube for a reminder of what ensued when the Bruiser from Bogota became collateral damage as he sauntered innocently between a TV cameraman and the unmissable spectacle of Bernie, er, walking in to the Ferrari motorhome.

The key to decoding the agenda of Formula 1's supreme wonga-wangler is to not analyse his behaviour in a literal way, assuming that he's playing a long game. His agile and clever mind craves challenge and stimulation, hates boredom; as Max Mosley wrote in his autobiography, quoting Ecclestone's former solicitor from his days as a car dealer, Bernie has "a great talent for getting himself out of trouble - that he got himself into in the first place."

Mosley's own opinion, formed during their early days of working together in the 1970s, runs along similar lines: "Bernie's speed of thought was also a weakness. He was so good at tactics and opportunism that he had no need to worry about strategy."

Perhaps there'll be a quiet tip to a malleable journalist, or an impromptu-seeming but calculated media scrum during the hubbub of a grand prix. Soundbites will ensue, but whether he has a particular outcome in mind - suggesting that some grand prix or other is under threat as a lever to wangle more wonga - or simply stirring the pot for his own boredom-staving amusement is sometimes hard to tell.

Bernie is a master of the powerful short-form quote, a skill that has served many great leaders down the years. Abraham Lincoln set the template for that in the Gettysburg Address, getting his point over in fewer than 300 memorable and easily publishable words which, courtesy of the recently invented commercial telegraph, were transmitted all over the world.

Hardly anyone remembers Edward Everett. Who he? The top-billed orator at the same gig, who spoke for a full two hours before Abe took the stump.

The Bernard can do that too, of course. If circumstances require, he can reply to a question at great length without actually answering it or providing a usable quote.

Bernie's challenge last weekend was to prevent the inaugural European Grand Prix in Baku from being nudged out of the headlines by two sporting events taking place in France: some provincial football tournament and the Le Mans 24 Hours. The latter has long been a bugbear; in the early 1990s Ecclestone and Mosley nearly managed to kill sportscar racing entirely, only for it to spring back to life, like Glenn Close leaping out of the bath at the denouement of Fatal Attraction.

To Bernie, Le Mans is the proverbial turd that won't flush down; worse, it vexatiously and disobligingly bobs back up every June, a potential resource thief outside his sphere of control. For the past few years a ceasefire has prevailed while the 24 Hours has been dominated by Audi, then by Porsche, car makers whose leaders had ruled out entering F1 so long as he draws breath.

As recently as last year he has even allowed it to run without scheduling a grand prix against it. But then Le Mans began to register as a threat again, when it crept on to the F1 news agenda after Nico Hulkenberg's victory in 2015 and a number of other drivers began to express an interest in competing. Autosport understands that at the very next grand prix, young Nico was summoned to the 'Bernie bus' and told to put a sock in it.

So this last weekend Bernie energetically made himself conspicuous from Thursday onwards, firstly with a grip-grin-spin outside the Mercedes cabin, chatting to embattled world championship leader Nico Rosberg, positioning himself neatly against the railing for maximum visibility. No quiet and confidential chat, this.

Unlike their naturalist brethren, Eccle-twitchers can't resist creeping ever closer to their subject. As the cameramen drew in, now elbowing each other for the best line, The Bernard perfectly chose his moment to grasp Rosberg chummily on the bicep, gently repositioning them both optimally in the frame for this very public display of support.

Job done, pictures already rocketing through the internet, he made for the media lair in the nearby Hilton Hotel to roll the proverbial grenade under the door.

When Bernie drops in on the great unwashed of the media centre you know he has something more than pleasantries on his mind. With chief paddock lieutenant and celeb wrangler Pasquale Lattuneddu at his shoulder he wafted in to the air-conditioned inner sanctum and shot the breeze with a casual, "How are we liking it then?"

Here we were in a country marked down by Human Rights Watch, looking forward to a race around which rumours swirled of underwhelming ticket sales and cost over-runs. For young Fleet Street sports scribes eager to be inducted into the Order of the Linen Jacket, this was an unmissable opportunity to earn a pat on the back from their distant elders.

"I follow a couple of rules in life," Bernie said, dancing out of range of the initial line of questioning. "Never talk about what you did last night and never talk about money."

The tease never fails to draw the audience in. Asked about journalists supposedly imprisoned for criticising the regime, Ecclestone replied, with a twinkle that doesn't transfer in print, "So they should. Depends what they say..."

'The Bolt' continued to toy with his audience, describing F1's previous destination, North America, as "a bit of a shithole", knowing full well that within minutes these words would be eagerly promulgated worldwide. But why ever not? The Montreal paddock is direly in need of a makeover which was supposed to have happened by now, but hasn't, and only last week Bernie had to unveil his new multi-million-dollar Heineken sponsorship deal in a temporary complex with backed-up toilets.

Headlines delivered, mischief made, coded messages sent, Bernie took his leave - and, mark you, unlike that piece of theatre outside the High Court in 2013, he had no trouble with the revolving door on the way in or out. No soft-headedness on display here.

On Saturday morning he turned up again. This was genuinely unprecedented. Could it be that he had become bored during a grand prix weekend composed almost entirely of afternoon track sessions?

Ostensibly, Ecclestone had come to slap the wrists of a hapless hack over an alleged fact-breach in a recent magazine column. One wondered if this was a task better accomplished over the phone than in a public forum.

Then, sure enough, the Eccle-twitchers began to gather, one by one at first, hovering like those infuriating folk who start to queue at the gate for an EasyJet flight before the inbound aircraft has even arrived. Tugged by The Bernard's magnetic pull they inched ever closer, shamelessly entering the orbit of what should probably have remained a relatively private conversation.

It was an ugly but fascinating scene.

And what do you know? An impromptu press conference followed, and the berated scribe mopped his brow with belief and melted away as Bernie shifted his ire to yet another question about Azerbaijan's human rights record (this from someone who, axiomatically, was enjoying the hospitality of the very regime they were fruitlessly dissing, the media centre being located in Baku's luxurious Hilton Hotel).

Then, as the bluster subsided, the gleam of pure gold: the Italian Grand Prix could move to Imola, you know. It's not up to me; it's up to the Italian national sporting authority, of course.

Whizz, bang. Don't look at that, look at this.

Job done again, The Bolt swept out, leaving the assembled scribes bereft and wanting more, waving their digital recorders hopefully in the direction of his receding back as if further nuggets might tumble forth.

Watch, listen, analyse if you will, but never underestimate the mental powers of this formidable player of the game...