Race Business: How Flavio Briatore turned a 'very bad idea' into a $150 million F1 deal
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of In Conversation With, a new series from the race business. I'm Darren Cox, I'm the founder of The Race Media, and my conversation was with Flavio Briatore. As you can imagine... a fascinating conversation that covered many, many subjects. I really did try and keep it to the business aspects of our sport, but of course, we talked about drivers, on-track performance, and a little bit of history, including, of course, Schumacher and Alonso. But mainly, the big outtakes were around the business of the sport. There's some surprises in there, but also a lot of insight around the new deal that brings Team Enstone to become... Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One team from next season.
There's a lot of exclusives in there. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Flavio, thank you very much for taking the time in your busy schedule to talk to us here at the race. The Enstone team has another name change for next year. It becomes the Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One team. That is a massive deal for Formula One and for Alpine, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. For Alpine especially. You know, we are creating the brand Alpine as well. And the idea to have Gucci was really up in one day because we have a riveting in Formula 1 to sponsor the event, but we never had a luxury brand in the car. So I had this idea to start talking with Luca De Meo. You know, Luca was in Aston before, was in charge of Renault, was the chairman of Renault, and Luca in the beginning believed it was a very bad idea. And this was while he'd moved to Gucci already, or was this before he'd moved? No, no, no. He was moved already to Gucci. And we're talking, Luca is a very good friend of mine, and we're talking all the time about the brand having a caring. And I said, Luca, no, it'd be fantastic if you have...
We have Eni, one of the big Italian companies, European company. We have MSC, number one in the world. So why we don't put Gucci? That's why I lead the group. And the number one in the world, the name, you know, you're talking about a company doing six billion turnover. In the beginning, he tell me, it was a very bad idea. Okay. I never give up. I push him, push him, push him. At one point, he call me, tell me, Maybe it's a good idea, but we need to convince Mr. Pinault. And we had a few meetings with Mr. Pinault. In the beginning, it was difficult because Mr. Pinault never followed Formula 1. He had no idea what was going on, etc., etc. After that, he was convinced to do something with Alpine. We had a race in Monaco for him.
It was the first race. I was incredibly enthusiastic. Plus Monaco is the big event. So all this together, Gucci decided to join the Alpine team, like a major sponsor, a title sponsor brand. And I was very happy, happy for the team, but happy for Gucci as well, because everybody in Gucci is very, very enthusiastic. Very, very enthusiastic. two months ago when we formalized the contract. It was unbelievable in the way the Gucci people take this challenge to be Formula 1 for the first time, a luxury brand. In the end, it's good for Formula 1 because you have the two best luxury brands in the world. You have Louis Vuitton on one side and you have Gucci on the other side. And the two groups are managed both by the Italian people because...
Pietro is Italian and Luca is Italian and the two big French luxury brands worldwide. So, I believe it was a good deal for everybody and now we need to see. We need to see next year everything is Gucci. Everybody is excited and we need to make sure the car is exciting as well.
I've heard a lot already been said about how seriously Gucci are taking this and that they're going to revolutionize the way that F1 is marketed as, as you say, the first luxury brand on the car. Can you give us any insight into what sort of things you might be? Sure, sure.
Now we work in the delivery of the car, we work in the delivery of the driver, the merchandising. For Alpine, it's a big exposure. I'm sure it'll be in every shop Gucci. It'll be one corner of the F1 merchandising and it's super.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–5:55
2
How did Flavio Briatore secure Gucci as a $150m title sponsor for Alpine?
5:55–10:24
3
Why did Gucci initially think sponsoring an F1 team was a ‘very bad idea’?
10:24–23:55
4
What will Gucci’s involvement change in Alpine’s merchandising and fan engagement?
23:55–39:12
5
How did Benetton’s marketing revolution influence modern F1 team branding?
39:12–55:43
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Race F1 Podcast
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