Bernie recommends Briatore for Ferrari top job

Henry Valantine 20 Dec 2021 7:45 AM

Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone. Baku April 2018. — Former team boss Flavio Briatore walks with former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. Baku April 2018.

Bernie Ecclestone thinks Flavio Briatore would get a tune out of Ferrari, and hire people who aren’t “solely” from Italy.

The former Formula 1 boss thinks the Scuderia were more successful when they had people within the team from all around the world, and believes former Renault team principal Briatore, who won two titles with the Enstone team in 2005 and 2006, would simply hire the correct staff members to put Ferrari back to the front.

When speaking to Italian media, he didn’t hold back in 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 team principal Mattia Binotto.

“I’ve got my feelings about Ferrari and always have done: I’m a super, super, super Ferrari supporter,” Ecclestone said to Gazzetta dello Sport.

It’s been a season full of laughs and smiles together 😁❤️#essereFerrari 🔴 @Charles_Leclerc @Carlossainz55 pic.twitter.com/XF2ndVecPt

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) December 19, 2021

“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.”

Briatore had resigned from Renault in the wake of the ‘Crashgate’ scandal, which saw Nelson Piquet Jr allegedly crash deliberately in order for Fernando Alonso to win in Singapore in 2008.

He received an indefinite ban from FIA-sanctioned events, but this was overturned in 2010. Briatore said previously that he could not see himself returning to Formula 1, but 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,” said Ecclestone.

“And the people that were no good, he’d chuck out. So actually, [Ferrari] could have Flavio back for a couple of years.”