Ferrari need a UK Base - Flavio Briatore

Flavio Briatore believes that Ferrari must open a base in England if they are to be successful again.

All but three of Formula One's teams have a base of some kind in the UK and nine of last 10 world championships have been won by a team based in the UK.

Ferrari previously opened UK design offices during Jon Barnard's spells with the team in the 1980s and '90s, although these failed to bring any championship glory. In fact, during their most successful period in the early 2000s, the team was based exclusively in Italy

But Briatore insists it is what Ferrari needs to return to the front.

"I've said it for years, that while Ferrari has always been a great manufacturer, it must have a technology antenna in England," he told Italian radio Rai, reiterating a claim he last made in 2014.

"They won when they took 12 engineers away from me at Renault, so I would put a nice building in the middle of Red Bull, McLaren and Williams," Briatore added.

Briatore also discussed Liberty Media's recent takeover of F1, calling the deal "very strange".

"They have paid only 700 million, the rest of the money will be when changes are made but no one is talking about the F1 product," said the Italian.

"Among the teams there will be a showdown, everything is to be reviewed but nobody cares about an F1 that no longer attracts and has strange rules that no one understands," Briatore added.

"It's not a good platform when only one team wins and all the others lose. There are only three teams: now it's normal for Vettel to finish fifth from the last row.

"In my opinion, the Americans should open their wallets and try to fix the product. After that, they need to keep Bernie (Ecclestone)," he said.