Fast cars, models and . . . QPR. `In life, you need to

Sport 77
THE TIMES Wednesday February 27 2008
The big interview Flavio Briatore
When Formula One was sex
and drugs and rocky roads
timesonline.co.uk/f1
The big interview Flavio Briatore
JOHN CASSIDY
Fast cars, models and . . . QPR.
‘In life, you need to be happy’
The Italian with the playboy image and
Formula One team on why he loves Loftus
Road and loathes the congestion charge
Kaveh Solhekol
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
PA, BIG PICTURES, REUTERS
‘I used to ski every
weekend, now I
stay and watch QPR’
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.
Model behaviour: Briatore has been linked with Klum, left,
and Campbell, right, and is engaged to Gregoracci, centre
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 under-
standing 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.”
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