Flavio Briatore
But on the end of the year Briatore once again confronted the defection of a protege – Alonso signed to drive for season-lengthy rivals McLaren in 2007. It was right now that Briatore first got here into contact with the sport. Luciano Benetton took him to the Australian Grand Prix on the finish of the 1988 season. The staff had taken over Toleman at the finish of 1985, won its first race in 1986 with Gerhard Berger, but hadn’t repeated the feat since, and the Benetton firm was considering winding up the F1 team. In 2000, Renault announced its plans to return to Formula One with the purchase of the Benetton Formula group. Briatore returned as managing director and team principal, changing Rocco Benetton.
He told the FIA that he was instructed by Briatore and director of engineering Pat Symonds to crash his automobile during the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008 in order to assist Alonso. Briatore refuted the fees to begin with but on September 16th Renault announced it would not oppose the fees and that Briatore and Symonds had left the group. Nonetheless Renault gained both titles again in 2006, despite a fraught and infrequently controverisal battle with Briatore’s former charge Schumacher and his Ferrari staff. When Renault was banned from using its mass damper suspension system mid-means through 2006, Briatore blamed Mclaren and Ferrari for lobbying the FIA to have it banned.
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When he changed Button the outcry was huge but Briatore acknowledged, “time will inform if I am wrong”. Briatore has a status as a talent-scout and doubtless his biggest ‘find’ has been Fernando Alonso. As his supervisor, Briatore secured him a race drive with Minardi in 2001 and promoted him to test-driver for Renault in 2002. Briatore bought a share of the Minardi team in 1996, but after failing to sell it to British American Tobacco as he had hoped, he sold out to fellow house owners Giancarlo Minardi and Gabriele Rumi. Late in 1994, Briatore bought the ailing Ligier group thereby buying its Renault engine supply. He passed operational administration of Ligier to Tom Walkinshaw and took on full management of Benetton.
He purchased a stake in the Minardi team with the intention of promoting it to British American Tobacco, who needed their own F1 outfit. But when partners Gian Carlo Minardi and Gabriele Rumi did not help the move, he offered the interest back to them. BAT later purchased the Tyrrell group and created British American Racing. Walkinshaw brought his former sports activities car racing employee Ross Brawn on board in 1992 – the dream staff was falling into place. In 1994, after Ayrton Senna died and regardless of a string of controversies, Schumacher gained his first championship for Benetton.
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Briatore now runs the elite entertainment and hospitality large Billionaire Life. Colourful Italian business tycoon Flavio Briatore granted me an interview and I discovered him on sometimes forthright type on topics starting from his friend Michael Schumacher, Brexit and Donald Trump. Schumacher won his second title in 1995, and when the German went to Ferrari alongside his mechanics, Briatore was in hassle. He was subsequently changed in 1997 and from 1998 to 2000, he was heading Supertech, an engine supplier for F1 groups. Soon after finishing his education, Briatore had several business ventures, and within the seventies, he became an assistant to Attilio Dutto. After Dutto was killed in 1979, Briatore moved to Milan, where he met Luciano Benetton, CEO of the eponymous company.
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