[Keith Collantine]

I cam across an 25-year-old pre-season quote from Flavio Briatore, then-Benetton boss, referring to Michael Schumacher (a two-times grand prix winner at that point) and Ayrton Senna:

I don’t want to stay in F1 for 25 years because it doesn’t interest me that much. I see it from a business point of view. For that reason, I would never employ Senna. I win the world championship with Michael Schumacher, it’s a win for Benetton; I win it with Senna, it’s a win for Ayrton.

Does his point hold up with the benefit of hindsight? I’m not sure it does. I think inevitably when you have a mega-talent like Schumacher you think of them first and the car second. The constructor inevitably gets overlooked.

What do you think?

[Anonymous]

How can he win it for Senna when he never employs Senna?

[Ben Needham]

It’s an interesting quote. Personally when someone says to me “Who won the championship in xxxx?”, my mind is automatically thinking about the driver; the constructor is secondary to me. The only exception for me is probably 2009 when I immediately think of the Brawn GP story (sorry Jenson…).

He’s clearly made the quote thinking “Senna is a household name, Schumacher is not”… forgetting that the moment Schumacher won the WDC he too became a household name.

[Fer no.65]

I’m with @ben-n Drivers come first, constructors are just secondary.

I always thought Frank firing Mansell and Hill had its roots on him wanting to put his products ahead of his drivers, which I think it worked. Their dominance in the 90s is probably the period where I think more about their Rothmans livered cars than the guys at the wheel…

But returning to what Briatore said, I guess in hindsight it doesn’t bode well for him, because all I think of that Benetton are the claims that it was an illegal car.

[Author]

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