British business magnate Bernie Ecclestone believes Flavio Briatore would get a tune out of Ferrari and bring the team back on top by hiring people who are not “solely” from Italy.
The ex-Formula 1 chief feels the Italian side was more successful when the team was made up of people from all around the world and pinpoints to former Renault team principal Flavio Briatore, who won two titles with the Enstone team in 2005 and 2006, as the ideal man who would simply hire the correct staff members to put Scuderia Ferrari back to the front of the Formula 1 grid, after several difficult years.
The former chief executive of the Formula One Group was recently interviewed by Italian daily newspaper dedicated to coverage of various sports ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’, and expressed his views about how an all-Italian Ferrari staff would function, as he thinks “each one wants to be in charge”, and things are “not easy” to manage at Maranello for current Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto.
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“I’ve got my feelings about Ferrari and always have done: I’m a super, super, super Ferrari supporter.” – Bernie Ecclestone said, as reported by the Italian media – “But I think at the moment, when they were really performing well was when they didn’t have the whole Ferrari workforce and team run solely by Italians. Because at the moment, the trouble is everybody thinks they know what to do and they would like to make all the decisions on how and what [to do]. But in the end, you think about when they were successful, most of the people weren’t Italians. [There’s] nothing wrong with Italians. The trouble is if [they] all get together, each one wants to be in charge, which ain’t as it should be. You need one person completely in charge and not to be influenced by anybody else, which is not at all easy. It’s not easy for the current team leader [Mattia Binotto] to be there, I’m quite sure.” – he explained.
Flavio Briatore left Renault due to the well-known ‘Crashgate’ scandal, which saw Nelson Piquet Jr allegedly crash deliberately in order to help teammate Fernando Alonso secure victory in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. After that, he received an indefinite ban from FIA-sanctioned events, which was eventually overturned ten years ago. Flavio Briatore confiremd several times that has no intention of returning to Formula 1, but Bernie Ecclestone believes his approach at running a team would see Ferrari get back to winning form again.
“Flavio would be fantastic, because where Flavio would be good [is] he’d steal the right people from other teams, and he wouldn’t care what nationality they were or anything. And the people that were no good, he’d chuck out. So actually, [Ferrari] could have Flavio back for a couple of years.” – Bernie Ecclestone concluded.
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