Bernie Ecclestone, 91, opens up on being dad to son Ace, 1, and says gun arrest came after he jokingly detained worker

FORMER Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has opened up on life as a 91-year-old dad.

The British tycoon became a father for the fourth time in July 2020 after wife Fabiana Flosi gave birth to son Ace in just a 25-minute labour.

Ecclestone, whose eldest child Deborah is 67, has been married to Fabiana, 46, since 2012.

Ace is their only child together - and Ecclestone's only son - with Deborah born to first wife Ivy Bamford, while daughters Tamara and Petra were born to Slavica Radic.

Speaking to the , proud Ecclestone told how his young child - who turns two next month - loves being by the pond in his Ibiza villa and has already swam a width of his outdoor pool.

Admiring the fish, Bernie said "Ace likes feeding them by hand".

He laughed about his son's hobbies, joking: "He likes pretty much anything."

Ecclestone also lifted the lid on his arrest in Brazil last month for carrying a gun as he boarded a private jet to Switzerland.

He was fined £1,000 for accidentally packing the unloaded Seecamp 32 pistol after it was found in the pocket of one of his shirts.

The ex-F1 chief said: "I got it a few years ago from someone in Formula One and we thought it might be a good idea for Fabiana to have it in her handbag in case of a robbery to scare someone off.

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"I actually don't think it would have been much use. The sort of people who might want to rob us may have had guns a lot bigger than this little thing."

Ecclestone revealed he only had the gun in his luggage after jokingly pretending to detain one of his employees.

He remarked: "I was mucking about with the gun at home. I was pretending to arrest somebody, one of the guys who rides the horses.

"I put it into my shirt pocket and took the shirt off. I left my things on the bed to be packed and in it went. I never used it, or carried it. It had no bullets. 

"They scanned the luggage then called me to look through the suitcase — they said they couldn't open it until I got there — and we spent ages trying to find it. Eventually I found it."

Ecclestone then went on to say that Mercedes' tactics at the 2021 Abu Dhabi cost Lewis Hamilton a record eighth world championship.