When I was a child, I have always been told the story of the greedy man that ends with him losing everything because of his greed. I have remembered that story while watching Ecclestone actions and decisions in the Formula1.
The Ecclestone family are the holders of the commerical rights of Formula1. And when talking about commericals then the number of viewers is the principle issue. That was the main problem between him and the organizers of the Australian and Malaysian GPs as due to time differences, the races start at a very unsuitable time in Europe with a minimal number of European viewers and that reflects on the advertising companies (mainly European).
Between moving to night races or cancelling the 2 GPs from the agenda, they agreed to delay the race start until 5pm local time allowing a suitable broadcasting time in Europe. On the first race (Australian GP), with no rain, the race ran smoothly without delays and reached an end before the night time but many of the drivers complained about visibility issues and discouraged the idea of twilight races.
A week from that and on the Malaysian GP, it was expected to face the problem of heavy tropical rain that ususally pours in the afternoon. And that is exactly what happened and finally they had to put the uncompleted race to an end as the sunlight fades in the unequipped Circuit.
I think it was a fair punishment for the greed of Ecclestone, but it was disappointing to millions of F1 fans to see the race ends in that way.
