the formula

Thanks to Original Alex in comments, here’s an account of Flavio Briatore who recently stepped down from Renault after his quest to bring modern business methods to the outcome of Formula 1 races came unstuck. I used to do some publicity work with a Formula 1 team which shall remain nameless. It was quite the postmodern institution: a dense thicket of complex relations between various commercial sponsors, in the middle of which you could occasionally glimpse a motor car. Certainly, the drivers seemed to spend more of their time at compulsory sponsor gladhanding events  - being stared at lovingly by sweaty men in expensive suits - than in their cars, which were mainly put through their paces by the third driver.

Not that the racing was actually neglected. You need to put a car on the track and get it to go round and round to attract the sponsors in the first place. Do that at sufficient speed and you attract more sponsors and make more money. But that, and the sheer expense of putting the show on the road, just meant that the whole sport became encrusted with sponsors in the way certain crabs are encrusted with barnacles. Moreover, it wasn’t really commercial sponsorship made with an eye to commercial returns. Most of it was vanity sponsorship, in which a CEO directed his company’s money towards the sport in order to reward himself with bragging and patronage rights. At a day to day level, much of the company’s business was a kind of massage therapy for egomaniacs. So I’m not too surprised that one of the more louche owners, who seemed to be attracted by that sort of stuff anyway, decided to bring a more settled quality to the contest: get the racing thing sorted and live the life.

Comments

[ejh]

Thanks to Original Alex in comments

Eh?

[Leinad]

There's a new one. Posting fairly similar stuff.

[skidmarx]

I see that Briatore has escaped any question of a "fit and proper" person test being applied because he has resigned from Renault before the case could come up, in the manner of a policeman taking disability.

It was also notable that it took the media several days to even notice this might be an issue.

[ejh]

I thought Martin Brundle's response says a great deal about the way sport works as far as openness and freedom of speech are concerned. Martin thinks people should have kept their traps shut.

Sport, in many ways, is just business speeded up.