NEWSMAKER - Briatore exit leaves F1 a little duller

By Alan Baldwin

PARIS (Reuters) - Traditionalists decried Flavio Briatore as a T-shirt seller who could barely tell a spark plug from a bath plug when he arrived in Formula One 20 years ago.

Surveying the world through blue-tinted sunglasses and frequently growling about the sport's inability to cut costs and put on more of a show, 'Flav' could never be called a petrolhead.

His banishment from the glamour sport on Monday for his role in a race-fixing scandal, decades after he first shook up the scene with Italian clothing firm Benetton, will leave the paddock a little duller and certainly less controversial.

What the tall Italian lacked in engineering expertise he made up for with force of character, entrepreneurial bravado and a shrewd business brain.

Formula One, Briatore once said, is "just cars racing on a Sunday and grid girls". Yet there was no doubting the Renault team boss's passion for putting on a show and giving fans more for their money.

"He understands the business of Formula One, he's a wheeler-dealer -- and a lot of people are in this pit lane -- but Flavio is good at it," former Renault technical director Mike Gascoyne once said. "He's not just all mouth."

Accompanied by a dazzling array of supermodels and celebrities, the perma-tanned playboy made a fortune from the sport and has been a regular in glossy magazines for the best part of two decades.

He had a stormy on-off romance with British supermodel Naomi Campbell, fathered a daughter with Heidi Klum and this year married compatriot Elisabetta Gregoraci.