Flavio Briatore: "Fred Vasseur is a friend, I hope he does well at Ferrari"

Flavio Briatore: “Fred Vasseur is a friend, I hope he does well at Ferrari”. Flavio Briatore on 2023 F1 season.

“At Ferrari now there is Fred Vasseur who is a close friend of mine and we hope that he does well” – these were the comments of Italian businessman Flavio Briatore, who worked as team principal for Renault and previously as managing director of Benetton. The Italian manager admitted that he hopes for a 2023 Formula 1 season at least along the lines if not better than the 2022 championship which has seen the Scuderia from Maranello once again fight for pole positions and race wins after a two-year period 2020-2021 in which the Prancing Horse was not able to secure any victories, unlike ‘ outsiders’ such as McLaren, Racing Point and AlphaTauri.

The 2022 regulation change that brought ground effect back to Formula 1 was effectively exploited by the Ferrari technicians and the F1-75 challenger was clearly the car to beat at the start of the previously season, only to unfortunately lose ground in terms of competitiveness against a Red Bull RB18 which by progressively losing weight became the reference point on the starting grid especially in terms of race pace where it has proven to be the best overall in managing tire degradation.

Although the championship was resolved well in advance in favor of Max Verstappen, the 2022 Formula 1 season was marked by a record numbers in terms of public attendance and also in terms of recorded revenue. According to Flavio Briatore, the credit goes to an unparalleled driving force such as that guaranteed by the American Liberty Media: “I returned to Formula 1 two years ago, a sport which now has enormous appeal because the United States is an extraordinary driving force, whereas before it was very difficult to enter that market” – Flavio Briatore’s words reported by the ANSA press agency – “Formula 1 is entertainment, let’s go to America and attract 500,000, 600,000 people”. – he added.

Liberty Media certainly manages to effectively exploit what it has available, a category in which there is no shortage of key figures that guarantee appeal to Formula 1: “There are some extraordinary and fantastic young drivers” – continued Flavio Briatore – “People who communicate with the media in a different way. There are extraordinary champions like Verstappen, like Hamilton, like Leclerc, like Russell, a group of fantastic young people. And a group of less young people like Alonso who wasn’t in such great physical shape even when he was racing with me.” – the former Renault team principal concluded.