Flavio Briatore
Flavio Briatore
Flavio Briatoreis an Italian businessman. He started his career as a restaurant manager and insurance salesman in Italy. Briatore was convicted in Italy on several fraud charges in the 1980s, though the convictions were successively extinguished by an amnesty. Briatore set up a number of successful Benetton franchises as a fugitive in the Virgin Islands and the United States. In 1990, he was promoted by Luciano Benetton to manager of the Benetton Formula One racing team, which became Renault F1...
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth12 April 1950
CityVerzuolo, Italy
There will be more action and the drivers will have to be on the track a lot more.
He has demonstrated that he is a talented, aggressive driver in the GP2 series, and he has impressed our engineers during his tests with the team. The test driver's role will be crucial during 2006 as we develop our V8 engine through the season to defend the World Championship.
I pay enough. The driver moves around but the team stays. What you need is a solid, efficient team. This attracts a good driver.
I don't think Michael Schumacher forgets how to drive a formula one car. It is just Ferrari having a bad year. Michael does the best possible job with a limited car. But I think Fernando can be as great even if Michael already has seven championships - a crazy number. Fernando has the potential to do that because he is made to be a champion. He is also much calmer than Schumacher. Forget what you see in public - where Alonso is smiling and Schumacher is concentrated. I know them both very well and I promise you Fernando has the ice in his blood - more than Michael, who is boiling inside with feeling.
We were racing for a World Championship, we weren't playing around,
It would be suicide to have two championships.
It would be great to have Valentino in F1, but he wouldn't have even a minimal chance of winning,
We have spectators walk away from television. In the meantime, we have less spectators in the grandstands.
I was obviously a bit annoyed at this.
To come here this weekend and dominate the race shows we have done the job right this year. We have shown speed and reliability. This is a dream team.
I don't know what happened, the emotion. Like Fernando said before, he was thinking about what happened in 2005. I was thinking about what happened in my 15 years of Formula One. I think I needed some privacy,
I believe we are quite close to a commercial deal, to finalize it with Bernie. We are basically agreed. Something will happen maybe this week or next week, but on the commercial part I believe we are very much in agreement.
I have heard what the French journalists have said and they need a new job. It is false information that they have disseminated everywhere. Renault want to stay in F1 but only under certain conditions, like the other major manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Honda, BMW and Toyota. They all want to see the same conditions.
Nigel Mansell became champion after he was 40.