Why the Bow Tie? & Banned for Life

Driver 61 recently released a video about the man that formula 1 banned for life - a former boss of mine, Flavio Briatore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1PnMIwQicE

One weekend Flavio, who was the boss of the Benetton team at the time, brought some potential sponsors around the factory as part of his plan to bring in additional finance to the team. He didn't get the sponsor, and a parting comment from the people involved was that they didn't think it was professional to have staff in the office wearing worn out t shirts from a rival team. I was there wearing pretty relaxed clothing although not from another team (wasn't very tidy though). Monday morning Flav sent the word out that there would be a "team info" meeting at lunchtime.

All office staff will wear a collar and tie and the clothing would be supplied by the company. Wasn't sure what he wanted from the women in the company but they too had to dress relatively formally. My special personality kicked in and I tried to work out how to comply with the new edict, without complying with the spirit of it. My reasoning was this. We scour the planet for the most creative and innovative minds we can find to solve complex problems quickly and effectively. And now, Flav was trying to force us all to be uniform. Didn't get that at all. So I went for bow ties and it became a bit of a thing for a while. Wore them with team kit too when at race events which didn't go down well as it wasn't part of the race team uniform (didn't get away with it often). At work I got away with it because I was often in the workshops with disk sanders and equipment that could easily catch a conventional tie and strangle a person. So I thought when talking about Flavio, I'd go back to those days and wear one of my now comprehensive selection of bow ties.

Flavio was certainly a colourful character. I got seriously worried after I had resigned from the Benetton team after I reacted to Flav's remuneration cut to the team after winning the 1994 world driver's championship. We had some long conversations which included what I felt was a vaguely veiled threat along the lines of "Willeme, I donna want you to leavea the Family, you know what I meana". That did worry me, so I had some discussions about ways I might stay in the group of companies around the Benetton team, while still working my long notice period. When I get the job at Ferrari, I stopped worrying - I reasoned that if the menace was intended, I was going to a bigger "Family" that Flav's "family" would respect.

The team at Driver 61 have put together a short and interesting summary of the man and his approach to life, worth a watch if you are interested in the colourful characters in F1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1PnMIwQicE