The chase, for Flavio Briatore, is everything. Whether he is masterminding a third formula-one drivers’ world championship at Renault or attempting to buy Chelsea Football Club with Bernie Ecclestone, the climactic moment always seems hollow in comparison to the build-up.
Even sex, which the 55-year-old Italian team leader describes coyly as ”the event”, is apparently the same.
With his feet encased in velvet slippers, each featuring his initials stitched in gold, Briatore sinks into a plush red couch in his gloriously indulgent apartment on Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. He is only hours away from launching his latest extravagant business venture — a fashion label called, with typical understatement, Billionaire Couture. Yet, at least for now, Briatore is more preoccupied with the fleeting nature of fulfilment both on the track and in the sack.
”You know how it is with women,” he suggests as his memory of Fernando Alonso clinching the world title two days earlier turns into a philosophical discourse on his restless life. ”The big excitement comes with the flirting. You flirt, flirt, flirt and then you are there. It is the event. But the flirting is more pleasurable than the event.”
Briatore has reputedly ”evented” a string of lovelies ranging from Naomi Campbell, his former girlfriend of many years, to Elle Macpherson, Eva Herzigova, Nicole Kidman, Mariah Carey, Victoria Hervey and yet another supermodel, Heidi Klum, with whom, before their inevitable breakup, he had a daughter last year.
”In the same way,” he says gruffly, ”the excitement of the championship ends as soon as Fernando crosses the line in Brazil. I discount it even if, for me, this is more emotional than when we won it with Michael [Schumacher] for Benetton in 1994 and 1995. I was still so new then, like Michael, and we were like an amateur team. It was a double miracle.
”This one was harder because people think it impossible for me to do it a third time — especially when I come back to formula one after a break. But the mathematical moment we do it is not special. It is just technical.
”That night I fly out of Brazil. The team stay behind to party with Fernando. This was logical. The next afternoon I am in our factory in Paris — reminding people about our four years of hard work and, more important, next season.”
Briatore may work as hard as anyone else in formula one but his intuitive brilliance in a business he pretends not to fully understand — he is far more comfortable ruminating on sex and fame than discussing ”something very boring like whether or not our gearbox or suspension help win the title” — is built on a mysterious talent.
”It is a feeling — to know which driver has the unique quality. You cannot learn this. You either have it or you don’t. I have it. When I first see Schumacher I know he will become champion. Same with Alonso. When Renault ask me to come back to formula one I have [Jenson] Button there. He was the star. And Jenson did a good job in an uncompetitive car.
”But I feel Alonso is right. I choose him over Button. Everybody criticise but, to me, it is obvious. Jenson is a good driver, very solid, but Fernando is special. So I go with Alonso even if 90% of people inside formula one, even my own team, think I’m wrong. But this is also why I am a successful manager. I know the right decision.”
Despite his deceptive public image as a mature playboy Briatore could well be the cleverest man in formula one. He is also more equipped than anyone to compare his Spanish protégé with the German master he helped discover.
”I don’t think Schumacher forgets how to drive a formula one car. It is just Ferrari having a bad year. But I think Fernando can be as great even if Michael already has seven championships — a crazy number.
”Fernando has the potential to do that because he is made to be a champion. He is also much calmer than Schumacher. Forget what you see in public — where Alonso is smiling and Schumacher is concentrated. I know them both very well and I promise you Fernando has the ice in his blood — more than Michael, who is boiling inside with feeling.”
His friendship with Ecclestone extended into another grand sporting ambition when, early last year, they decided to buy Chelsea.
”We had a big programme to take over the club when [Roman] Abramovich arrive by boat. He buy Chelsea from under our noses. It is funny. Abramovich and Bernie are very big friends — and I meet him many times. We were on our way with Chelsea, me and Bernie, and Abramovich put a stop to it. I was only surprised by how much money he want to spend. But Abramovich is fantastic for Chelsea. Now I stick to what I love for the moment — formula one. When I no longer have that love maybe I try football again.”
With his world championships and sexual conquests, his huge yacht and private jet and his Billionaire nightclub in Sardinia, Briatore was recently voted the icon 67% of Italian men most wish they could become.
”The media have done this,” Briatore says in amused protest. ”I understand more than other team principals … I know we all become rich because formula one is about entertaining people with this dream.
”But I also have a simple life. I cannot tell you how many times I sit alone here, eating in front of the TV. We all have those moments in our lives but no one is interested. They want to know who I go with to Cipriani [his restaurant in Mayfair]. That’s where I find the paparazzi. Not when I leave here to go to the Renault factory in Oxfordshire at 6.15am. No one cares about that story. But those are the quiet moments when I know who I am. Those are the moments that make the dream work.” — Â