{"id":164834,"date":"2025-06-07T11:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T11:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/164834\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T11:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T11:33:09","slug":"flavio-briatore-reveals-f1-decision-that-unleashed-the-fury-of-the-british-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/164834\/","title":{"rendered":"Flavio Briatore reveals F1 decision that \u2018unleashed the fury of the British press\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flavio Briatore has named the decision he made to \u201cunleash the fury\u201d of the media in Britain.<\/p>\n

The Formula 1 mogul has never been far away from contentious decision-making during his decades in the sport.<\/p>\n

From his involvement in the Crashgate scandal to his recent arrival at Alpine, Briatore\u2019s reputation for ruthless calls is well earned.<\/p>\n

Briatore was asked by Italian newspaper Corriere to name the mistake which taught him the most.<\/p>\n

\u201cMistakes are inevitable,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re doing things, you\u2019re going to make them. The key is to quickly adjust your course as soon as you realise it, without letting your pride keep you stuck on the wrong track.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was asked if that philosophy explained his decision to remove Jack Doohan from the Alpine and throw in Franco Colapinto.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly. That\u2019s a good example,\u201d Briatore answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in the past, I decided to put a very young Fernando Alonso<\/a> in the driver\u2019s seat \u2014 back then he was just a test driver \u2014 instead of the more experienced Jenson Button<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat decision unleashed the fury of the British press. But in the end, I was right.<\/p>\n

\u201cA manager is always alone when making big decisions. Then, over time, others come around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flavio Briatore and Jenson Button clashed after parting ways \"Flavio <\/p>\n

Flavio Briatore<\/p>\n

The highly promising Button was ditched from Renault in 2003, after his first three seasons in F1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That decision gave a chance to the young and unproven Alonso whose only time in F1 so far was a forgettable start with Minardi.<\/p>\n

Briatore held a longstanding relationship with Alonso will he surely leaned on when deciding to replace Button.<\/p>\n

But the decision did work out. Two years later, Alonso won back-to-back F1 drivers\u2019 titles with Renault.<\/p>\n

They remain his only two F1 championships to this day.<\/p>\n

It took Button a bit longer to find success. After a period with Honda, he switched to Brawn which immediately paid dividends.<\/p>\n

Button won the 2009 drivers\u2019 title with Brawn, the sole F1 title of his career. But he clashed with Briatore again during his title-winning year.<\/p>\n

Briatore compared Button to a concrete post and suggested that Brawn\u2019s pace only came from a controversial (but legal) rear diffuser.<\/p>\n

“He is obviously a very angry man \u00adafter the diffuser issues and he is obviously very disappointed that they haven’t produced a car that is as competitive as ours,” said Button at the time.<\/p>\n

“We have produced a very competitive car because of the work force we have back at Brackley and you cannot take it away from them \u2013 it is very unfair to say that.<\/p>\n

“They have worked very, very hard in very difficult circumstances and it’s very unfair for Flavio to comment as he has, just because he is a little bit bitter. He should also not forget he tried to employ me for this season.”<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flavio Briatore has named the decision he made to \u201cunleash the fury\u201d of the media in Britain. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,6319,707,4200,32332,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-164834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-fernando-alonso","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-jenson-button","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114641869526991540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}