Interview
Briatore's success explained: 'Flavio doesn't listen to bull****'
- Ludo van Denderen
It might be a coincidence or not, but since Flavio Briatore made his (re)-entrance at Alpine, the French team has found themselves on the way up. Will the advisor actually succeed in turning Alpine, which has been struggling for years, into a winning team? Guenther Steiner certainly believes in the approach of the Italian, who had successes with Benetton and Renault in the past.
"Flavio goes through with a very practical approach, not listening to bull****," Steiner said during an exclusive interview with GPblog. "It’s just his practical approach. The biggest job he needs to do, he's doing.He's cleaning up. That is his biggest because he doesn't care if he needs to clean. For him, it's like, okay, I'm doing a job. I'm not being Mr. Nice Guy. I'm not being Mr. Nasty Guy. I'm doing a job."
According to Steiner, Alpine needs to be swept clean after years of unrest and disappointing performances: "Whatever turmoil they had, the team just had no vision anymore. No guidance, nothing. They are just a lot of people doing some work."
"But Flavio goes in there and looks around and said, 'What are all these people actually doing?' Well, half of them are doing nothing because it was never defined, because none of the team principals there had the chance to do anything anyway because they came and left. They all came in, they all started to do something, and nobody finished. Then the next guy came in, and again, nobody cleaned up properly."
'Briatore doesn't talk, but he does'
That is precisely what Briatore is currently doing in the organization, Steiner continued: "He's sorting out what is there and then building up on it. All the other ones came in built up, and there was a mass of people. There was no clear vision anymore there because none of them, fair play to them, had the time to do it."
Briatore is also the man who took over Franco Colapinto from Williams. Perhaps the Argentine will even replace the intended regular driver Jack Doohan in '25. That too is Briatore: "It's fair. If you're good, you stay there. If you're not good, you go."
"Everybody spoke about Colapinto. The only one that picked him up was Flavio. Let's do it, he said, okay, I get this guy. I don't know what I'm gonna do with him, but I take him. Everybody else talked. I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. He took him, and that is the strength of Flavio, he's got the respect from the people [from Alpine] to do what he needs to do," Steiner believes.
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy
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