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Motorsport

"Nothing to say on this, next question!" – Flavio Briatore’s weird F1 press conference

Flavio Briatore Christian Horner F1 Franco Colapinto Alpine Oliver Oakes Mario Isola Mick Schumacher Bernie Ecclestone Jack Doohan

Following the resignation of Oliver Oakes, Flavio Briatore has taken on the duties of team principal at Alpine – despite not holding the official title.

Briatore had already been wielding significant influence behind the scenes as an advisor, but now he has also become the French-owned team’s public face once again. This role includes appearing in official FIA press conferences when called upon – and his first session was, in many ways, emblematic of the flamboyant Italian’s personality.

The format is typically formal, often rather staid – even soporific, depending on the line of questioning from the floor. Briatore was a disruptive influence from the off as he was introduced by host and F1 TV presenter Tom Clarkson alongside Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and Pirelli motorsport manager Mario Isola.

Asked how his first year back at Alpine (initially as an advisor) had gone, Briatore quipped back: “You say 12 months, but it's only been 10. My payslip shows only 10 months!”

When the line of enquiry turned to Oakes’ departure and what qualities Briatore is looking for in a successor, Horner cut in: “Cheap?”

Briatore laughed heartily and followed his lead: “Cheap – someone cheap!”

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing; Flavio Briatore, Alpine (Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images via Getty Images)

He then added, with a pinch more gravitas: “We’re looking for someone who’s good and who knows how things work, someone who’s part of the team. I know several people would like to be part of this new journey with Alpine, and we’ll make a decision soon.”

Longtime F1 viewers will be familiar with Briatore’s gnomic and often self-contradictory phraseology, made all the more challenging to parse by his sotto voce enunciation. For newcomers this will have proved a fascinatingly ‘WTF’ experience.

The almost delirious atmosphere built throughout. As soon as the floor was opened to audience questions, the first one was for Briatore: Could we see Mick Schumacher driving for Alpine in F1 in 2025 or 2026?

It was clearly not a question the 75-year-old Italian was keen to answer.

“I don’t understand why we’re talking about Schumacher now,” he responded. “We’re sitting here in the year 2000-something. I don’t understand. What you want to know?”

When Horner repeated the question for clarity, Briatore mumbled: “Well, everybody says something like that. I don’t think it’s a question to ask me here. Next question!”

#36 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424: Mick Schumacher (Photo by: Andreas Beil)

Clarkson, politely but firmly trying to ensure the journalist got a functional answer to their question, asked once more whether Mick Schumacher was at least on a shortlist. That too went nowhere.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Done.

The answer triggered laughter in the room, and a joke from Horner when the next question came his way: “Maybe I should take a page out of Flavio’s book and say, ‘that’s a question I don’t want to answer!’”

Later, when Briatore appeared to lose interest half way through answering a question about whether Pierre Gasly could be a future world champion and bounced the matter into Horner’s lap, the Red Bull boss chuckled and said: “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about! But I just want to say how refreshing it is to have Flavio back.

“He’s been gone a while, but this is hilarious, isn’t it? I mean, these press conferences were terribly boring before you came back.”

“Nothing’s changed in 20 years,” replied Briatore. “Maybe a little bit – more people with white hair…”

“Or no hair,” ventured Horner.

“Me and you as well.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Isola – no, Isola is still good-looking.”

Marco Antonelli, Flavio Briatore, Executive Advisor of Alpine F1, Mario Isola, Director of Pirelli F1 and Stefano Domenicali, CEO of the Formula One Group at the tribute to the late Eddie Jordan (Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images)

The end-of-school-term feel continued as Horner used Briatore to deflect a question about rumours that he was being tapped up to move from Red Bull to Ferrari.

“My Italian is even worse than Flavio’s English, so how on earth would that work?”

Although it appeared that few of the participants were taking it seriously, the conference also confirmed just how ruthless Briatore can be – especially when it comes to drivers, as Jack Doohan has already found out this season.

Doohan was replaced by Franco Colapinto ahead of the Imola round two weeks ago, although it's still unclear how many races Colapinto will actually get – Alpine’s press release stated five, but Briatore immediately claimed someone else must have invented that figure.

When asked about it again in Barcelona, he was typically vague, though his response carried an undertone of threat.

“We still need to wait to evaluate Franco Colapinto and first see how this race goes,” he said. “Monte Carlo is a special race for everyone, and we made a lot of mistakes in qualifying.

“In Monte Carlo, qualifying is basically the race – and this year’s race was very boring and also very frustrating. Let’s see; this [Spain] is really Franco’s first proper race.

“And how many races will he get? I don’t know. I never say five races, three races, four races, or one. We’ll see. If Colapinto performs well, he’ll be in the car. If not, we’ll see.”

Franco Colapinto, Alpine (Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images)

That brought Briatore to the core of his message.

“2025 is a year for us to prepare for 2026,” he said. “So whatever experiments I need to run for that, we’ll do them. I don’t know at this point whether Franco will drive for us the entire year – let’s see.

“It depends purely on performance, and nothing else.”

Briatore’s statement about 2025 being a preparatory year is particularly noteworthy, since his use of the word “experiments” suggests more driver changes could be coming in the lead-up to next season.

It fits perfectly with Briatore’s reputation for being ruthless – just as this at-times absurd press conference was a perfect match for that same image.

Briatore was known to be close to former F1 ‘ringmaster’ Bernie Ecclestone. Long before he annexed control of F1’s commercial rights, Ecclestone was known as one of the UK’s foremost car dealers – and others would come from all over the country to try to beat him in a deal.

Famously, many of them went away so bamboozled by Ecclestone’s tricks that they had to stop on the way home and telephone him back to ascertain what they had actually bought.

Briatore is cut from the same cloth…