F1: who is Flavio Briatore, the driving force behind Colapinto’s arrival at Alpine

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The Italian, executive advisor of Alpine, promoted the Argentine’s arrival in the French team. A man with successes and traps.

“The only certain thing is death.” This is how Flavio Briatore responded before the end of the year holidays when he was asked if Jack Doohan and Pierre Gasly would be the Alpine drivers in 2025. The rumor about the arrival of Franco Colapinto was already installed and, finally, this Thursday it was confirmed that the Argentine will be a reserve driver. That day, the Italian only announced that the Australian and the Frenchman would be on the grid for the Australian GP that will open the 76th season. Afterwards, anything can happen. Briatore is like that.

Flavio was born 74 years ago in Verzuolo, a small Piedmontese town of 6,500 inhabitants. He went from being a ski instructor to being a restaurant manager. His life would change when he met Luciano Benetton, the founder of the renowned romper company. At the end of 1985, The textile businessman decided to buy the Toleman team, the same one in which a certain Ayrton Senna had debuted in F1. This is how the Benetton team was born in 1986 and Briatore took over as director.

The team achieved its first victory in Mexico 86 with the help of Gerhard Berger, but the enormous leap in quality was when he hired Michael Schumacher in 1991. The German had made his debut in a hurry at the Belgian GP, ​​in Spa-Francorchamps, with the Jordan team and, without a second’s hesitation, he met with the German’s manager, fired Roberto Moreno and in the following race The Kaiser was Nelson Piquet’s companion. The rest was known history: Schumi was champion in 1994 and 1995 with Benetton under the aegis of Briatore. At the end of 2001, Benetton sold the team to Renault, a brand that officially returned to the category. And there remained the ineffable Briatore as director. Already under the hosts of the Rhombus, The Italian celebrated Fernando Alonso’s achievements in 2005 and 2006, breaking Schumacher’s streak of five titles with Ferrari.

In the search for success, Briatore knows no limits, has no itches and is an unscrupulous character. A personal friend of Bernie Ecclestone, with whom he was a partner in several businesses (including as owners of the Queens Park Rangers team), he never hesitated to use tricks and even vile traps in the search for victory. The most notable was at the 2008 Singapore GP, the first night race in F1 history. The Italian devised a rude and grotesque maneuver: he directly sent Nelsinho Piquet, one of his Renault drivers, to crash into a wall, in order to favor the strategy of Alonso, his other pupil. Result: Alonso won the race. When the scheme became known, Briatore was suspended for life by the FIA ​​(Pat Symonds, Rombo’s technical chief and the Italian’s accomplice, received a five-year ban). However, the punishment for the rest of his days barely lasted a year and a half for the ineffable Flavio: a judicial intervention, an outside arrangement, Bernie’s doll and in 2010 everything came to nothing.

Briatore walked through the pits again without problems. The one left out was Nelsinho, who after the 2009 Hungarian GP was removed from Renault and would never return to F1 again. For the French company, it seems that time heals everything, and, already under the name Alpine, he was hired as an executive advisor to the team in June 2024.

This playboy, who was romantically linked to several models (he was married to Elisabetta Gregoraci), who owned nightclubs and did not miss the most important events of the high class, was key in Colapinto’s landing in Alpine. The fresh money that comes from the companies that support the Argentine was a treat that the Italian was very interested in. Franco starts from the reserve position of Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan. It is clear that Flavio’s pulse will not tremble if someone has to go down to raise the Argentine. The focus is the Australian. Some point out that his contract is for six races and that in Abu Dhabi he completed the first one. It’s just a rumor, nobody knows the links of F1, always kept under seven keys. In any case, good old Doohan may have a copy of the contract in his house that marks a thousand years of union, but, it is known, in F1 contracts are broken. There are many examples and Briatore himself already demonstrated it.