[MEDIA]
That's crazy. Flavio never made a single technical or tactical call from the pit wall or anywhere else in his entire time at Benetton. What do you think Brawn and Walkinshaw (no angel either) were there for?
Marketing, in his first season with the team. Sacked for refusing to co-operate in setting up a kick-back scheme. Dealt with him and his sleazy minions again in the mid-1990s when advising one of the team's sponsors (after he tried to prevent me from getting that consulting deal). Had some very good friends working at/with the team who kept me very well informed in subsequent years.
Ah, so you were right there at the sharp end of his dealings then. He truly is a crafty devil, what a prick to try to stop you getting a gig like that..
Reading Flavio Briatore's resumé on Wikipédia is interesting. For example his early life and his problems with the justice in Italy where he received 2 prison sentences for fraud. He ran away to avoid going to jail and only set foot in Italy years later when he was safe from prosecution. He was a refugee in the Virgin Islands where he started working for Benetton.
That’s the story of almost everyone that makes money in Italy! The justice system invariably catches up, writs are issued, bribes are made and a time limit for return is negotiated..... its rare anyone of any monetary power does actual jail time, and if they do, mostly they pay to have their jail time commuted to house arrest and then pay those jailing them to turn a blind eye to let them carry on almost as normal!
Thanks, Sid. There are always a few movie-grade villains in F1 at any given time, and I certainly learned a lot from my experience with Flav, albeit the hard way. It all worked out in the end, though. From your posts, it seems you are well enough acquainted with this world to understand when I say that having the right enemies in F1 can be just as helpful as having the right friends!
Don’t I know it mate! It never ceases to amaze me how looking from the outside in, f1 and its characters seems like a fluffy soap opera, whereas actually inside the machine, there are so many things going on that no one could suspect, good and bad. A third of what the media report is correct, another third wishful thinking, and another third is simply hidden away and kept out of the light completely!
Flavio Briatore was a HACK before getting into F1. In F1 the Singapore crashgate was not the only of his wrongdoings. Ron Dennis all the way, from a simple mechanic to the maestro of the Mclaren empire. How Briatore's mother could give him such a noble first name is beyond me.
Dennis is definitely not a saint either. Spygate, telling Hamilton to lie, cheating on his partner while on the death bed, the stupid way he behaved upon his return at Mclaren, the failed takeover attempts, etc. etc. And that’s just part of what we know...
The Piranha club, and both were fully paid up members! Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app
Ron Dennis and Flavio Briatore are just like many company CEOs who will adopt borderline and unethical methods in the interest of their business, or to further their own interest. The newspapers are full of stories of executives caught acting outside the law. I think power goes to their head at times, and Inside them grows a sense of invincibility. Some of us still treat F1 as a sport, when in fact it's a cut-throat business with everything that involves, attracting individuals ready to go to any length (including breaking the law) to be very successful and very rich too. F1 is absolutely littered with these characters, from Chapman to Briatore, from Ecclestone to Van Royen, or from Monteverdi to Mallya, and there plenty more ... I often ponder on one of my father's saying; "You don't become rich by staying honest". I don't subscribe fully to that, but to become successful, you certainly have to be ruthless.
Can I change my vote now please? **** Briatore. I don’t like Ron much, but at least he didn’t screw over an fchatter (as far as we know)
Never heard about the cheating part. I know Ron and his wife split in 2008 – was it after that? I can tell you that when Briatore and Naomi Campbell broke up, she cut the crotch out of all his trousers and all his neckties in half...
My bad, meant business partner. IIRC Dennis attempted an hostile takeover right while Mansour Ojjeh was believed to have only few days to live and tried to court his daughter while he was at it. No wonder when Ojjeh eventually survived his cancer was pretty pissed off at uncle Ron and threw him out in the end.
No, my bad, I should have recognised that was what you were talking about. And all that definitely happened.
These two guys are at totally opposite ends of the spectrum.Never met Ron, did briefly meet Flavio ,with Schumi, at Hockenheim 1994. I was wearing a Ferrari jacket at the time and somehow ended up in the Benetton hospitality unit post race...long story. Anyhow,knowing all the stories over the years regarding both of them,it is a tough call .I give the nod to Flavio as someone to have a drink and chat with,if only to get the low down on his ex's.
