The Belpaese is roaring in motorsport. The triumphal ride of the Cavallino in Le Mans was not enough, escorted to the prestigious finish line by the Italian Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini. Yesterday the news arrived that the legendary Flavio Briatore will also take to the track again to help the other Italian talent Luca de Meo accompany the Alpine team to the highest levels of the Circus. And honorably interpret that original role of the French “National Motoring Team” that the dynamic top manager of Apulian origins coined for the occasion. Flavio, at the tender age of 74, throws himself into the fray with his usual enthusiasm.
His life is a movie. Actually a novel and, reading the biography, it is hard to believe that one man alone could have done all those things. His best-known successes, however, are in Formula 1, where the Piedmontese landed like an alien in the early nineties when he was not yet forty. It was introduced by his friend and work partner Luciano Benetton, who was managing the team he created a few years earlier. Flavio was branded by experts as an “upstart” due to his total lack of experience in motorsport, but the skill that was most needed to swim in that aquarium invented by Bernie Ecclestone, a former driver who became one of the queen’s richest subjects Elizabeth, she was cunning.
The surveyor had extraordinary business acumen and money and immediately sensed that that colorful and noisy planet would become his lair. «This is not a sport, it’s a business…». She repeated to her friends before getting to work. It didn’t take him long to climb the ladder of success, leaving everyone stunned by how he managed to attract the right people, sniffing like a truffle dog at the phenomena in the making, both technical and, above all, pilots. The rise was meteoric, in a flash he found the F1 at his feet, with total respect for such cunning. At Spa, the temple of speed, he fell in love at first sight with a rookie German boy, deploying all his wits to sign him.
He had hired Michael Schumacher who the following year, on the same track, won his first grand prix and, in 1994, managed to win the F1 World Championship. In less than five years, from the antechamber to heaven, no one wanted to believe it. The following year he did an encore, switching to the Renault engines that have accompanied him throughout his career, until now when he only has to report back to the person who hired him, Luca de Meo, the current leader of the Renault Group to which Alpine belongs. “Kidnapped” by Schmi by the Ferrari charm of his friends Montezemolo and Todt, Flavio had the patience to wait for the end of the Rosso cycle to put himself back on the throne.
In Estone, headquarters of Toleman later purchased by Benetton, the very Regie that Carlos Ghosn wanted to bring to dominance had taken office. And he chose Flavio, who knew those structures like the back of his hand, to lead the enterprise. Briatore saw his Michael embracing Todt on podiums all over the world while he was preparing the masterstroke with another discovery of an excellent “telent scout”. It was the young Alonso who succeeded Schumacher by dominating the 2005 and 2006 championships, both Drivers and Constructors. In just over ten years 7 World titles, 4 Drivers and 3 Manufacturers.
As has often happened to him in his formidable career not only in F1, from the stars he could end up in the dust, chased by “justice” who often condemned him, but always rehabilitated. From the Circus, which had crowned him a hero, he was kicked out with infamy accused of having deliberately sent Piquet Junior into the wall to bring in the safety car and hand the victory to Alonso in Singapore. Banned from all FIA paddocks, Flavio was honorably rehabilitated and in 2022 appointed Ambassador of the top Formula for his results on the field.
Now the return to the front line will not mean that his constant presence on the circuit. In addition to a few years under his belt, Flavio manages a global business of which he is also the main shareholder. De Meo strongly wanted him as an “executive advisor”, i.e. executive advisor for F1, to give the right tips thanks to his vision made of intuition and experience. Flavio, over time, has had numerous “partners”, from Benetton to Ecclestone, up to Minister Santanché. Another spontaneous role was that of the “playboy”, always surrounded by beautiful companions with whom he recently took a group photo: Naomi Campbell, Heidi Klum and Elisabetta Gregoraci.
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