Briatore-Alpine, Hill harsh: “Disconcerting. He doesn’t care about the rules”

The return of ‘Don Flavio’

One of the most important news of the Spanish Formula 1 weekend was certainly that of return to the Circus with a responsible role within Flavio Briatore’s team. The former controversial architect of the successes of Benetton and Renault, respectively in the mid-90s and mid-2000s, has in fact been appointed executive consultant of the Alpine team.

Briatore has also already released his first official statements as a member of the French team, defining a sort of ‘programmatic direction’ for his new role. Inevitably, however, the return of the Cuneo manager to the halls of power in F1 was not only greeted with applause. The past of the former boss of – among others – Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso is considered too cumbersome by some.

A controversial past

The role that Briatore played in Singapore crash 2008 – with the ban from sport, which was subsequently revoked – was remembered by several observers. Among the most critical of the operation conducted by Alpine was the 1996 world champion Damon Hilltoday a popular TV commentator for Sky Sports F1. Hill knows Briatore well, given that in the mid-90s he often found himself dueling with his Williams against the Benetton managed by the Italian entrepreneur.

“Opaque situation, doesn’t care about the rules”

“I don’t really understand it. It’s disconcerting to me – declared the Englishman speaking of Briatore’s return – I am very disappointed. I listened to the team principals’ press conference and everyone said: ‘Why are you so surprised? It’s Flavius. He knows this sport, he has an incredible history of brilliant ideas in this sport.’ And that’s fine, but what will it bring? For me it’s an opaque situationI do not understand her“.

According to Hill, Briatore may have been hired by Alpine to put his face on “difficult choices“, which could be for example the management of the relationship with the Renault ‘parent company’: “Maybe they need someone like Flavio, who will make this decision for them and who will wash their hands of the whole thorny question of whether they are a Renault team or what they are. – Hill commented – he doesn’t care about conventions and rulesobviously, and that’s why he got into trouble“.