Bernie Ecclestone has spoken openly for the first time about the possibility of a breakaway by Formula One from the FIA as the sport remains paralysed by the breakdown in his relations with Max Mosley. Ecclestone has so far distanced himself from direct endorsement of rumours that some Formula One teams would like to set up a new championship outside the auspices of the FIA, the sport’s governing body, and Mosley, its president. But in an interview with The Times this weekend, Ecclestone speaks about it as a possible way out of the impasse.

In remarks that will be seen as part of the continuing bout of megaphone diplomacy between Ecclestone and his former friend, the Formula One rights holder gives warning that the teams are free to do as they please in the absence of a new Concorde Agreement, the commercial contract under which the teams race in Formula One, between them and the FIA.

“What the FIA doesn’t have, which is the most important thing for them, is an agreement with the teams which they would have with a Concorde Agreement,” Ecclestone said. “The teams can do what they like. At the moment what we are trying to do, to keep sponsors happy, is say we can’t break away, but it could well be that that will happen. There is no agreement between the teams and the FIA. There is a commercial agreement that has been signed by the teams and FOM [Ecclestone’s company], so the teams can do what they like.”

The source of Ecclestone’s frustration is twofold. On the one hand he no longer makes any attempt to hide his view that Mosley should stand down in the wake of revelations about his private life; on the other he is becoming increasingly frustrated by Mosley’s refusal to enter into talks on a new Concorde Agreement and the FIA’s determination to increase its influence over the way the sport is run.

In his interview with The Times, Ecclestone went on to suggest that the lurid newspaper allegations, strongly denied by Mosley, of Nazi role-playing between Mosley and several prostitutes was damaging the substantial Jewish investment in Formula One.

Mosley believes Ecclestone is trying to wrest control of the sporting regulations from the FIA and wants to remove the FIA’s veto over who Ecclestone could sell the business to. The two men are also at loggerheads over Mosley’s determination to have a greater say on how the income from Formula One - worth billions a year - is divided up. Ecclestone will have none of it. “Max has nothing to do with finance,” he said. “The FIA has a clear, clear, clear agreement and signed agreement with the European Commission that they are the regulators of the sport. They are not anything to do with money. If Max comes back and says we should give more money to teams, I will tell him to mind his own bloody business.”

Ecclestone believes the crisis is inflicting commercial damage on the sport. “It’s time-wasting,” he said of the refusal of Mosley even to talk to him. “People don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “So if you are a big, big organisation, you don’t know what decisions to take. I am responsible to our shareholders, the teams and the manufacturers, who have an awful lot of money invested. Max is responsible to the people in wherever who have got no money invested and nor has the FIA got money invested - all they’ve got is money that comes from Formula One [£30 million a year]. If there was no Formula One, the FIA would be in serious trouble.”

Ecclestone added that Jewish investors in Formula One are extremely unhappy. “The thing that worries me is that the Jewish community controls an awful lot of the finance which comes into Formula One, directly or indirectly,” he said. “They say the FIA shouldn’t let somebody like Max represent them."