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Flavio Briatore remembers the backlash he faced from the British media when he signed Fernando Alonso to replace Jenson Button.
After spending his rookie season at Minardi, Alonso dropped off the grid in 2002 as he became Renault’s test driver behind Jenson Button and Jarno Trulli.
Button had shown real promise in his early years, bagging 14 top-six finishes in three seasons, but Briatore controversially dropped him in favour of Alonso before 2003.
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Flavio Briatore: I recognised Fernando Alonso’s talent before the British media
Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Briatore recalled that Button was considered a future world champion at the time. He was accused of signing Alonso solely because he was the Spaniard’s manager.
Belatedly, Briatore’s critics realised he had made the right call. In just his second race for Renault, Alonso gave them their first F1 podium since 1985.
Later that year, in Hungary, he ended a victory drought that stretched back to the 1983 season, when Alain Prost was racing for the team. Alonso went on to win back-to-back titles with the Enstone squad in 2004 and ’05.
“You remember with Fernando, I signed Fernando [for] one year in Minardi to understand,” Briatore, who also signed Michael Schumacher after just one race in 1991, said. “After I chose Fernando to replace Jenson Button, you guys all went crazy, the British press went crazy.
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“You fired the [future] world champion to take this Spanish guy! I always say, you can only in the future tell me if I was right or not. I was right!
“You recognised [the talent] after when he started winning races. I remember the press conference. I did it in the motorhome with your guys, [you said] ‘it’s because you’re managing the guy’, ‘you fire the world champion, blah, blah, blah’.”
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Button stayed on the grid with BAR Honda, forerunners of the Brawn GP team. He would have to wait until 2009 for a shot at the title, but he took it.
After returning to F1 with Alpine, a continuation of Renault, a couple of years ago, Briatore has continued to make bold calls. Most notably, he let Jack Doohan go just six races into the 2025 season to sign Franco Colapinto.
Colapinto did little to justify that decision in his first year but has shown promise this season by scoring 16 points and matching Pierre Gasly in qualifying. Ironically, there is now talk that Alonso could return to Alpine, which puts the Argentine under new pressure.
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