Alpine's executive advisor and de facto team boss Flavio Briatore, is the latest guest on The Race Business's 'In Conversation With...' series with The Race co-founder Darren Cox.

In the full interview - which you can watch further down the page - Briatore talks about how 'Team Enstone' has gone from an $80million valuation to a $3.5billion valuation, how highly he rates Pierre Gasly, why he thinks there needs to be 24 sprint races and explains how he turned a 'very bad idea' into a $150million title sponsorship deal.

And here's Darren's take on the experience of having this race one-on-one access to arguably F1's most outspoken team boss:

"With Flavio here it feels like we are a racing team again."

A chance encounter with the long-serving receptionist at Team Enstone gave me some extra insight into the man and some more context for the conversation I was about to have.

A conversation that touched predictably on Schumacher and Alonso and Bernie and ‘T-Shirt manufacturers’ and winning but also somewhat surprisingly on Donald Trump, team valuations, pizzas and reheated soup.

In the age of 1000-employee F1 teams owned by faceless corporations or investment ‘vehicles’ and run by very straight-laced engineers, the feeling of the staff in the factory that they are employed by a race team can be very tenuous at times.

Having been an employee at Renault, I also know how the senior French leadership can be perceived.

And they wouldn’t be seen as racers.

The receptionists, the machinists, the administrators, the windtunnel engineer, even HR (OK, maybe not HR) can add big incremental value to a business if they feel that they are involved in an actual race team.

Clearly that is the first thing Flavio brings to Enstone.

In his own words, the outcome should always be “winning, not touristing around the f***ing world”.

He also brings clarity of thought. Whether you like those thoughts or not, he won’t care, and he is clear and confident about them. That was the biggest thing that struck me during our nearly one-hour conversation. One that we were told would be unlikely to last more than 30 minutes.

I went away thinking that with age my own clarity of thought and conviction has been diminished. Maybe because I know more than I did so therefore have more to process and also am very aware of the downsides of my bad decisions. Whatever the inputs, the subconscious career bravado of my youth has been lost.

Despite Flavio being 24 years older than me and clearly not as physically mobile as he once was, there is no lack of confidence, no confusion in his opinions and a very clear direction he wants to take Alpine in.

With those years of ‘experience’ in F1, you could be forgiven for thinking his days of being the innovator in the paddock, as he was in the Benetton days, are over. As you will hear from our conversation, nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, the groundbreaking, industry-leading Gucci deal was absolutely his idea.

The parallels between Benetton and Gucci in F1 are an obvious topic and one we explored. Flavio was keen to make those connections with one exception. This iteration of his team doesn't have an Michael Schumacher- or Fernando Alonso-style driver. At least, not so far.

He heaps praise on Pierre Gasly, but as I have reflected on the conversation, I feel it’s an unanswered question. Not in the context of the interview because Flavio gave an answer, but perhaps unanswered in his mind and absolutely not yet on track.

I have no doubt after this conversation that Flavio will recreate the Benetton Marketing magic with Gucci, but I don’t know yet whether the receptionist’s feeling that Team Enstone is truly a racing team again will come to pass on track next year.

As always, it’s going to be fascinating to observe Flavio navigate both elements of this ongoing story.