Soo many ill informed opinions.
Bernie is the COMMERCIAL RIGHTS HOLDER. It is is responsibilty to do the deals with the circuits, make sure they run to the agreed schedule and that the teams will turn up to every round. In return he gets the trackside advertising rights and the fees from the circuits to hold the race. He has NO control over what the rules are what the technicial regulations are.
He supports every team and will put out press releases designed to stir up media interest. So in Germany he'll support Michael in England Lewis etc etc. He's a very smart man of the opinion no publicity is bad publicity
The FIA set the rules and regulations. One rule being no team can have techical documentation from another without written consent. hence McLarens $100M fine in 07. If they want to change the regs under the concorde agreement they have to get consent from ALL the teams. Overtaking or lack thereof has been difficult of late so the FIA formed the "Overtaking Working Group" from a representative from each team. the OWG then came up with the new tech rules which were then rubber stamped by the FIA. The only time the FIA can introduce tech changed is in the interests of safety. Example being higher cockpit sides following the events of Imola 94.
The Silverstone thing is just bullshit! Bernie said the BRDC (owners of Siverstone) 8 years ago after the muddy fields nonsense sort it out of you lose the GP. Rightly so IMO. So they did the car parks. Then he said "Sort out Silverstone up to a decent standard in terms of pits and the like". So they fannied around for 8 years unveiling "artists impression" after "artists inpression" of what the propossed new compelx would look like. In the end they rebuilt the pit wall!
It's embaressing in the newer corporate world that the current buildings are over 25 years old! No ones saying they need to change the track, just update the place. As they have been increasing the entry fees every year anyway. How much for a 3 day pass this year!?! And there argument is always "Well its not the worst facilities" which may be true, but surely they should be aiming a little higher!
Year on year the fees for hosting a GP have increased. Bernie said to the BRDC you can go in my office choose any deal that another circuit gets and you can have the exact same terms. The BRDC choose NOT to do this and then keep whinging that the Gubberment should pay for everything. Why should they? It's a privately owned facility, with shareholders that are combined worth over a $500m. Who should really be paying to improve Siverstone? Interesting that when they lost the F1 and secured MotoGP, they can find several million to change the track layout.
Eventually Donington stepped in and offered to rebuild and improve if they could have the same deal. Bernie said "yes"
The BRDC seem to be under the misapprehension they should get preferential treatment because Bernie is British. In a commercial environment where other countries are offering to build facilities and throw money towards FOM it's a miracle the BritGp has survived this long! So don't think he's out to screw it over. He said if they just did what they said they would it would have been fine.