How did Flavio Briatore get into F1?

Briatore’s path to F1 is unconventional, to say the least. While many team principals today come from a racing or engineering background, Briatore’s long career started in the restaurant industry, and took him through a paint company, a finance business, the music industry to, finally, the Benetton company, which would become his doorway into motor racing.

Briatore first met Benetton group co-founder Luciano Benetton in the 1970s while working in the Milanese stock exchange. Their business partnership, however, really took off in the 1980s. Briatore was living in the Virgin Islands at the time, having relocated there to avoid a multi-year prison sentence for fraud linked with an Italian gambling ring. Briatore was instrumental in the expansion of Benetton to the Virgin Islands, and eventually worked up through the ranks until he was appointed as a director of the fashion company’s operations department in the US. 

The last turning point came in 1989, when Briatore attended that year’s Australian Grand Prix with Luciano Benetton. At the time, the Benetton F1 team was just getting started, having acquired Toleman Motorsports–the team that Ayrton Senna debuted with–in 1985. As the team grew, merchandising for the fashion brand was a key focus, and there was one clear candidate to lead it.

“I was living in the US at the time. Formula 1 wasn't popular there. I wasn't a fan. But Luciano convinced me to at least do one year and see what happens,” said Briatore about the experience in a 2008 interview with The Independent.

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The glory days: Briatore leading Benetton F1

“Little by little, I was in charge of the whole team,” continued Briatore in his conversation with The Independent.

Indeed, Briatore was central to shaping Benetton into the racing powerhouse that it was in the mid 1990s. It started with some major personnel changes, in the garage, but also behind the wheel, as it was Briatore who convinced Michael Schumacher to jump ship to Benetton in 1991 after driving his debut race with Jordan. Schumacher got his first two Drivers’ titles just a few years later, in 1994 and 1995, with Benetton securing the Constructors’ title in the latter season as well.

But this success came hand in hand with turbulence for the team. The tendency of being brutal when it comes to driver line-ups–something we’ve seen with Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto at Alpine this year–has been a long-running thread in Briatore’s approach to managing his F1 teams. In fact, not once between the years of 1991 and 1997 did Benetton have two seasons with identical line-ups. The team churned through 11 drivers in total across the seven years. 

With the departure of Schumacher in 1995 for Ferrari, Benetton hit a bit of a wall and Briatore struggled to bring the team back to where they once were. This, along with a series of controversies, including cheating allegations centering around an illegal fuel valve during the 1994 season, led to Benetton eventually announcing that Briatore would part ways with the team at the end of 1997. 

Yet this was not the end of the road for Briatore and Benetton. In 1999 the team switched engine providers to Supertech, a company which Briatore himself co-founded in order to keep Renault engines available to F1 teams following the company’s withdrawal from the sport. Supertech provided Renault power units to several teams including Benetton, which kept Briatore close to the team, despite no longer being officially part of it. 

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Rebrand to Renault and Briatore’s involvement in Crashgate

Things went even further at the start of the new millennium, when Renault announced it was returning to F1 with the purchase of the Benetton F1 team. One of the conditions of the buyout was the return of Briatore to the team’s leadership, bringing him back in the seat as managing director and team principal. Renamed to Renault in 2002, the team returned to its top form under Briatore’s eye, and claimed the Constructors Title in both 2005 and 2006, with their driver Fernando Alonso securing the Drivers Championship both years as well. 

But things took a turn for the worse for Briatore soon after, in what was one of the most infamous scandals that F1 has ever seen. During the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr (brother of Max Verstappen’s partner, Kelly Piquet) intentionally crashed his car in order to trigger a red flag that would give Alonso an advantage during the race. 

After Briatore removed him from the team in the aftermath of the incident, Piquet Jr revealed that Briatore and Renault lead engineer Pat Symonds had indeed asked him to crash during the grand prix. Briatore denied the allegations, but after further investigation by the FIA, Renault announced that both he and Symonds would be removed from the team. The FIA went even further, giving Briatore an indefinite ban from any of its events. This was later revised to just three years after being overturned by the French judicial courts.

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Briatore’s return to F1

After a decade and a half of no direct involvement in the sport, Briatore made his return to F1 partway through the 2024 season. Alpine, which Renault had rebranded to back in 2021, had gone through a period of instability punctuated by a revolving door of team principals in an extremely short time. Briatore was brought in as an executive advisor, meant to “predominantly focus on top level areas of the team,” as per a press release by the team. His return came with the hiring of yet another new team principal, Oliver Oakes, and several other management changes.

As the 2024 season continued, so did Alpine's struggles, and the team managed to score just 65 points throughout the year. Briatore immediately set about remedying this, making big changes within the team, including severing ties with Renault as their power supplier and striking a deal with Mercedes from 2026 onward. 

Another big change came with the announcement that Franco Colapinto would replace Jack Doohan just five races into the 2025 season. This was met with mixed reactions. Many felt that, despite a slow start, Doohan deserved more time to develop as he was just a rookie in his very first handful of F1 races. Yet, Briatore went ahead with the switch regardless, having been impressed with Colapinto's performance with Williams during a nine race stint in 2024 in which the young Argentinian replaced a struggling Logan Sargeant. 

Still, the biggest move since his return came at the beginning of May 2025, when Oakes unexpectedly resigned as team principal of Alpine, citing personal reasons for the exit. In his place, Briatore became the acting team principal, effectively returning to the position from which he was removed 15 years ago. At the time of writing it is not yet clear if he will remain in the position permanently or if the team will seek a new team principal in the near future.

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Briatore’s net worth and impact

With a career like the one Briatore has had, it is easy to see how someone like him could accrue an impressive net worth. According to celebritynetworth.com, his net worth is estimated to be around $400 million as of March 2025.

Whether you love him or hate him, there is no denying that Briatore is an incredibly influential person. From launching Michael Schumacher’s career and shaping the path of a historic F1 team, to now trying to bring it back to its former glory, there is no doubt that Briatore has had a major hand in shaping the sport that we love into what it is today. And as long as he is a part of it, he will undoubtedly keep us all on our toes, guessing what his next major shakeup will be.

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Cover image via BWT Alpine F1 Team media pool.