20/02/2005
NEWS STORY
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Renault boss Flavio Briatore, who regularly makes it into the newspapers and glossy magazines for his off-track activities, as opposed to his role as team principal, has spoken out in defence of Kimi Raikkonen.
The young McLaren star - in a story originally broken by Pitpass just hours after the event, though it didn't name the youngster - was exposed as having been witnessed making a fool of himself in a Mayfair club. This followed a number of previous incidents when the young Finn was caught, on camera, very clearly, the worse for wear.
Flavio, the original party animal, and seen here in a post qualifying de-briefing, has come out in defence of the youngster.
"If Raikkonen was my driver and he went to a club for a drink and some fun, I would have no problem with that," he told The Daily Telegraph. "We have to understand that a young driver is not a robot. As long as he is not drinking the night before a race, why not?
"You don't want drivers to be like book-keepers," he continued. "A driver needs to have a personality. What Raikkonen did is like a breath of fresh air. Maybe he should be given a drink before he speaks to the press in future.
"You go back to drivers like Nelson Piquet who was a normal guy," said the Italian, "to Gerhard Berger, Riccardo Patrese, Nigel Mansell. Now the kids look like they are fabricated. They're all the same. I don't recognise 60 per cent of them out of their overalls. I used to know them all, now I can't even pronounce some of their names!"