Flavio Briatore wants to get married and settle down one day, but for the time
being the 57-year-old is happy running a Formula One team, owning a football
club and dating a supermodel. Growing up in northern Italy in the 1950s and
1960s, Briatore never dreamt about owning nightclubs and restaurants and
rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. “I never wanted to be anything,”
he said in his Knightsbridge office, overlooking Harrods. “I just wanted to
be happy.”
A chance meeting in the late 1970s with Luciano Benetton, the founder of the
Italian clothing company, changed his life and catapulted him into a world
of fast cars and big business. This year he is planning to open a branch of
his Billionaire nightclub chain in Mayfair and a Billionaire boutique is
also about to open on Sloane Street in Central London. But when he gets out
of bed at 6am every day, he has more than clothes and nightclubs on his
mind. There is the Formula One team he has to run and the football club he
has bought with Bernie Ecclestone and Lakshmi Mittal, two of the richest men
in the UK.
“I wake up very early,” Briatore said. “I wake up when everyone else is going
to bed and I start work straight away - why waste two hours reading
newspapers? Then I work all day and I never go out during the week. In
London, maybe I go out once a month, but only to places I own. I never go to
someone else's restaurant or bar.”
February is a busy month for Briatore. The Formula One season is about to
start and he is determined to get things right at his Renault team. Last
season was a write-off and he winced when talking about finishing a distant
third behind Ferrari and BMW Sauber in the constructors' championship (after
McLaren's disqualification) thanks to an uncompetitive car that did not get
to grips with the Bridgestone tyres that all teams had to use.
According to Briatore, the managing director, this year will be different
because Fernando
Alonso, the Spaniard who won two world drivers' titles with the team in
2005 and 2006, is back after a miserable year at McLaren and the new R28 car
is a vast improvement on last year's model.
“Renault is back and we are confident that we will be protagonists this year
and fighting for places on the podium,” Briatore said. “For me, Fernando is
the best. He gets bad publicity in England because last year he was fighting
with Lewis Hamilton, but it is always like this in England.
“There will be no problems between Fernando and Lewis this season because they
are very intelligent. The problem between them was not personal animosity,
it was competition and the fact Fernando felt McLaren were not treating him
the same as Hamilton. For Fernando it was a team problem not a Hamilton
problem.”
The feud between Hamilton and Alonso may have been bad for McLaren, but it has
not done Formula One any harm. Propelled by Ecclestone's relentless drive
for new opportunities, races are springing up in countries such as
Singapore, China, Bahrain and Turkey, and there is talk of an Indian Grand
Prix.
“What Bernie has done is sensational,” Briatore said. “When he was talking
about going to China ten years ago everyone was laughing, but Bernie has a
vision and what he has done to develop Formula One in countries with
economic potential is amazing. Next we have to look for opportunities in
India, Korea and Russia.”
Briatore made his name in Formula One at Benetton, where he became the manager
in 1990 and led the team to two drivers' world titles, with Michael
Schumacher at the wheel. Some people get into Formula One because they love
cars; Briatore loves the spectacle, but not the cars. “I'm not excited about
cars. It takes me 15 minutes to get in and out of a Ferrari or a Porsche,”
he said - and in London he is driven around by his chauffeur in an
unremarkable Nissan.
Like most Londoners, though, one of his pet hates is Ken Livingstone's dreaded
congestion charge, along with the traffic, traffic wardens and pollution.
“The charge is very expensive,” Briatore said. “It's a little bit too much.
Some people need their cars every day. I don't drive myself because of this.
I have a driver. Everyone wants to reduce pollution, but you also have to
improve public transport and make sure that the train is on time.”
The way Briatore sees it, London could do with someone who listens to people
and then makes decisions, in the same way that he says he does at Renault
and Queens Park Rangers, the Coca-Cola Championship club he bought last year
with Ecclestone and Mittal. Briatore dismissed the rumour that he thought
someone was trying to sell him a restaurant when he took a phone call from
an associate who wanted to see if he was interested
in buying QPR, but he accepts that the deal has raised eyebrows.
Why buy a struggling Championship club when the gang of three could have
bought any club they wanted and be rubbing shoulders with Roman Abramovich,
the Chelsea owner, and the other big hitters in the Barclays Premier League?
“The centre of football is England,” Briatore said. “If you want to do
Formula One you need to be in England. If you want to make champagne you go
to France. If you want to make ham you go to Modena. Location is important
and at the moment the best football is in England.
“Anyway, I met Mr Abramovich when we played Chelsea in the FA Cup and I have a
lot of respect for him. I have known him for a long time and we were joking
about why anyone would want to run a Formula One team and a football club.”
But why QPR? Why not Fulham or Reading or any other top-flight club rumoured
to be for sale? “We prefer something that is more of a challenge,” he said.
“In the last 20 years I speak to Bernie at least five or six times a day. We
are in the same business, we travel together, he is my best friend. Whatever
I do, Bernie is always part of it. We have a very good understanding and
Lakshmi Mittal is also a very great person. He's a very smart businessman.
It is great to have these kind of partners, but more importantly it's very
important to have these kind of friends. Last year I used to go to ski every
weekend, now I stay in London because we all go to watch QPR together with
our friends.”
There is a picture of some of those friends at Loftus Road - Elisabetta
Gregoracci, the Italian model from the Wonderbra advertisements, to whom
Briatore is reportedly engaged, Naomi Campbell and other assorted models and
“It” girls - on the wall of Briatore's office next to the Formula One
trophies and two old black and white photographs of the 1908 QPR team.
So, is that happy-go-lucky Italian boy, who grew up without a care in the
world, happy with his Formula One team, his football club and all those
supermodels? “First of all, QPR doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the fans
and the shareholders,” he said. “In life you need to be happy with yourself
and the job you are doing. Just because you are in F1 is not going to make
you happy. Whatever you are doing, if you give 100 per cent then you will be
happy. If you are a butler, or a waiter, you have to work hard to have
success and then one day you might make it to F1 or have a football team.
“It is important as well that you meet the right girl in your life and fall in
love. Maybe for me it has been a little bit more difficult, but you never
know.”
Life in the fast lane
Flavio Briatore is the managing director of the Renault Formula One team and
the co-owner of Queens Park Rangers. The 57-year-old also owns the Cipriani
restaurant in Central London, a pharmaceutical company and holiday resorts
in Italy and Kenya, as well as the Billionaire nightclub in Sardinia and
Billionaire Couture.
He has been romantically linked with supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and
Heidi Klum and, according to Italian newspapers, he is engaged to Elisabetta
Gregoracci, the 27-year-old Wonderbra model.
April 12, 1950 Born in Verzuolo, Italy
1968 Leaves school with a diploma in land surveying and works as a ski
instructor and restaurant manager before moving to Milan to work at the
Italian stock exchange
1979 Appointed director of Benetton’s operations in the United States.
1990 Appointed manager of Benetton F1.
1995 Michael Schumacher wins his second world drivers’ title and
Benetton win constructors’ title
1997 Briatore leaves Benetton
1999 Briatore becomes Fernando Alonso’s manager
2000 Briatore becomes managing director of Renault’s Formula One team.
2006-7 Alonso wins world drivers’ championship. Renault win
constructors’ title.
2007 Briatore buys QPR with Bernie Ecclestone.
Two cars, one passion
Flavio Briatore is the managing director of the Renault Formula One team, but
he is not a fan of fast cars. He is driven around London by his chauffeur in
a Nissan and his favourite car is a blue Fiat Cinquecento he bought in 1968.
How they compare
1968 Fiat 500 Cinquecento
Cost £5,000 second hand
Top speed 55mph 0-60 n/a
Doors 2
Seats 4
Engine 479cc two-cylinder air-cooled
Transmission Manual four-speed
Fuel Four-star leaded
Insurance group 3
Pulling power 0/10
2008 Renault F1 R28
Cost £6 million
Top speed Limited to about 210mph 0-60 About 2.3sec
Doors n/a
Seats 1
Engine Renault F1 RS27 2400cc
Transmission Seven-speed semi-automatic with titanium gearbox
Fuel Kevlar-reinforced rubber fuel cell
Insurance group n/a
Pulling power 10/10
