Briatore: Michael Schumacher 'resting in bed'

      "I prefer to remember him like that"

      Flavio Briatore has suggested that the days of F1 icon Michael Schumacher are now reduced to "lying on a bed." Recently, Briatore, who was the team principal at Benetton (later Renault and Alpine) during Schumacher's first two consecutive title wins, confessed that he intentionally refrained from visiting the seven-time world champion since his brain injuries.

      "If I close my eyes," he elaborated in a conversation with Corriere della Sera, "I see him smiling after a victory. I would rather remember him that way instead of just lying on a bed. Corinna and I talk often, though."

      Now 75, Briatore made his return to Formula 1 last year as an executive advisor for Alpine. However, since he is not directly employed by the team or Renault, he isn't officially the team principal, although he represented the team during an FIA press conference in Barcelona last Friday.

      The Italian was absent from the paddock for years following a lifelong ban for orchestrating the deliberate crash of Nelson Piquet Jr. during the 2008 Singapore GP, which allowed Fernando Alonso to win the race.

      "I would like to thank Stefano Domenicali for permitting my return to Formula 1," Briatore expressed to the Italian newspaper.

      When Corriere della Sera asked him whether Schumacher or Alonso could be deemed the greatest F1 driver of all time, he responded, "I don’t know who the greatest is, because we’ve had Schumacher, Senna, Alonso. Now, the top spot definitely belongs to (Max) Verstappen. I have two cars at Alpine, so I would like to have two Verstappens."