It's difficult to imagine what lies outside the comfort zone of a man who has advised a Spanish prime minister, met two presidents of the United States, befriended (and struck deals with) Bernie Ecclestone, run a GP2 team and wrangled the first all-electric single-seater race series into existence.
And then the conversation turns to Alejandro Agag's role in the billionaire buyout of Premier League football club Queens Park Rangers.
"That was a totally crazy experience," he laughs. "It was fantastic, great... but totally crazy!"
The 45-year-old's office in Formula E headquarters, where Autosport has travelled to dig deeper into the history of a man who is growing ever more prominent in motorsport, is filled with memories of a not-too-distant past.
Shaking hands with Bill Clinton and George W Bush in the Oval Office is one thing, but there's also a picture of Agag alongside Flavio Briatore at Loftus Road. That givesAutosport the opportunity to take the main interview off on an entertaining tangent.
"There's Flavio and me at the first game," Agag says, pointing to the image. "How young we look!"
QPR's journey from the brink of bankruptcy to the promised land of the Premier League is well known to any football fan. With Agag, Briatore and Ecclestone - partners thanks to their social connection, not to mention Agag/Briatore combining to buy the F1 television rights in Spain in the early noughties - buying the club, it was always going to be a well-documented tale.
And it was, literally - thanks to a controversial fly-on-the-wall documentary some years ago, in which Agag was a key secondary character.
"I've seen The Four Year Plan," he remembers as Autosport brings up the film that was released in late 2011. "My kids found the copy yesterday! They played it and came to me and said, 'Dad, you cannot swear so much!'
"The documentary was a crazy idea – by Amit [Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who was also involved in the deal], I think.
Alongside Agag, Ecclestone and Briatore shared ownership of QPR © XPB |
"We had these guys following us for four years. It's nice to have it because you can look back and remember those things that happened, it was definitely a very crazy ride.
"It's very difficult because they had so much footage and they tried to put this story together.
"I think they did OK, they didn't have a lot of budget and did what they could. It's more like a souvenir of the time, which is good for us. I don't know if people enjoyed watching it."
Autosport did. There are some fantastic scenes, including a bizarre discussion over how to get an instruction to the manager. Autosport has a clear mental image of Agag repeatedly suggesting they send a text, but Briatore ignoring him and despatching a message to the masseur, who then informs the manager. But more on that shortly.
Ecclestone took a back seat – "He was quite busy with his own things!" – but Briatore (chairman), Agag (managing director) and Bhatia (vice-chairman) had key day-to-day roles, and appear throughout.
"It was all Flavio," says Agag. "He convinced Bernie. The world of football was so different to motorsport, we were really, really out of our comfort zone.
"I did dodge a bullet, I wasn't shown so much because I wasn't important. Flavio and Amit were really the leaders of the project so they were much more involved in the film. Me, I was lucky to speak and say sensible things!"
The sheer eccentricity exhibited by Briatore did not help the new regime's popularity with the fans. Tales of interference from the Italian are probably not a great surprise to those in F1 circles aware of his left-field approach to managing the Benetton and Renault teams.
Over the motorsport trio's four-year reign at QPR, seven managers occupied the dugout. And Briatore even had to remove himself from the public eye to keep things from boiling over. But Agag believes the Italian was only acting with the intention of success in mind – it was not necessarily a matter of ego.
"Football fans... football fans..." he broods, asked by Autosport how he got on with the tribalism that engulfs most clubs, particularly when there is a disconnect between the owner and the fans (as this writer, a Charlton Athletic supporter, is all too aware).
"It's difficult to qualify. Football is a distorted business, where the owner has to put so much money in to be hated by the fans. It's very stupid to be a team owner – you spend all this money from your own pocket and then the fans, who spend £20, come and insult you.
The film plots the (at times crazy) journey that Agag et al embarked on in taking over QPR |
"The problem in football is everyone thinks they know everything. In motorsport, it's not that bad. Not everybody is an engineer, some people will give you an opinion about tyres or something, but in football everybody knows what to do with the first team, who you need, who to employ, who to sack.
"You spend your time listening to people telling you what to do! The experience from the point of view of the fans wasn't very good!"
There's one scene in the documentary where Briatore demands to know the names of those booing him in the stadium, "or I sell the club". Suffice to say if you've not seen The Four Year Plan, it's well worth an hour and a half of your time.
It's a thoroughly entertaining watch, probably more so than it should be. But despite the boos, the multiple sackings, and the ups and downs, Agag points out there was enjoyment to be had.
"There are millions of anecdotes," he says. "We had so much fun. Flavio wanted to say which players played. The manager [caretaker boss Gareth Ainsworth] resisted a little. Flavio said Gavin Mahon has to play, the manager said no. The score was 0-0, at home [against Cardiff City].
"Flavio said, 'Tell him he has to put this guy in' to Gianni Baldini, who went down to the masseur. And the last 10 minutes, he puts this guy in. First play this guy does, he scores. Flavio was jumping, 'See! See! I told you!'. There are millions of those…"
As you can tell, Agag – a football fan himself and Real Madrid club member no less – remembers the experience fondly. And the four-year plan, the Briatore promise from which the documentary got its name, was eventually a success.
After securing promotion the motorsport trio exited QPR, with a soon-to-be-familiar F1 face in Tony Fernandes taking charge. Agag, for his part, has no regrets.
"It was a very hands-on management style of QPR, which in the end paid off," he remembers. "We sacked seven managers until we found the right one, Neil Warnock, who took us to the Premier League. So we did the right thing.
"At the end the only way to judge a project is with the result. And we won. So I guess we did something right with it.
"Of course, people say the important thing is to participate and be a good sportsman, but I don't believe that. Winning is the objective. And we did, we won. And big credit to Amit and Flavio for that. We bought a club to the Premier League, a club that was bankrupt and bottom of the Championship, and saw it in the Premier League.
"It was a fantastic experience but with a lot of bumps in the road. It's a lot more unpredictable than the world of racing.
"I'm sure if you asked Flavio or Bernie if they'd buy another football club the answer would be no – definitely if you ask me, the answer would be no. I'd much rather be in motorsport."
It's difficult to imagine what lies outside the comfort zone of a man who has advised a Spanish prime minister, met two presidents of the United States, befriended (and struck deals with) Bernie Ecclestone, run a GP2 team and wrangled the first all-electric single-seater race series into existence.
And then the conversation turns to Alejandro Agag's role in the billionaire buyout of Premier League football club Queens Park Rangers.
"That was a totally crazy experience," he laughs. "It was fantastic, great... but totally crazy!"
The 45-year-old's office in Formula E headquarters, where Autosport has travelled to dig deeper into the history of a man who is growing ever more prominent in motorsport, is filled with memories of a not-too-distant past.
Shaking hands with Bill Clinton and George W Bush in the Oval Office is one thing, but there's also a picture of Agag alongside Flavio Briatore at Loftus Road. That givesAutosport the opportunity to take the main interview off on an entertaining tangent.
"There's Flavio and me at the first game," Agag says, pointing to the image. "How young we look!"
QPR's journey from the brink of bankruptcy to the promised land of the Premier League is well known to any football fan. With Agag, Briatore and Ecclestone - partners thanks to their social connection, not to mention Agag/Briatore combining to buy the F1 television rights in Spain in the early noughties - buying the club, it was always going to be a well-documented tale.
And it was, literally - thanks to a controversial fly-on-the-wall documentary some years ago, in which Agag was a key secondary character.
"I've seen The Four Year Plan," he remembers as Autosport brings up the film that was released in late 2011. "My kids found the copy yesterday! They played it and came to me and said, 'Dad, you cannot swear so much!'
"The documentary was a crazy idea – by Amit [Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who was also involved in the deal], I think.
Alongside Agag, Ecclestone and Briatore shared ownership of QPR © XPB |
"We had these guys following us for four years. It's nice to have it because you can look back and remember those things that happened, it was definitely a very crazy ride.
"It's very difficult because they had so much footage and they tried to put this story together.
"I think they did OK, they didn't have a lot of budget and did what they could. It's more like a souvenir of the time, which is good for us. I don't know if people enjoyed watching it."
Autosport did. There are some fantastic scenes, including a bizarre discussion over how to get an instruction to the manager. Autosport has a clear mental image of Agag repeatedly suggesting they send a text, but Briatore ignoring him and despatching a message to the masseur, who then informs the manager. But more on that shortly.
Ecclestone took a back seat – "He was quite busy with his own things!" – but Briatore (chairman), Agag (managing director) and Bhatia (vice-chairman) had key day-to-day roles, and appear throughout.
"It was all Flavio," says Agag. "He convinced Bernie. The world of football was so different to motorsport, we were really, really out of our comfort zone.
"I did dodge a bullet, I wasn't shown so much because I wasn't important. Flavio and Amit were really the leaders of the project so they were much more involved in the film. Me, I was lucky to speak and say sensible things!"
The sheer eccentricity exhibited by Briatore did not help the new regime's popularity with the fans. Tales of interference from the Italian are probably not a great surprise to those in F1 circles aware of his left-field approach to managing the Benetton and Renault teams.
Over the motorsport trio's four-year reign at QPR, seven managers occupied the dugout. And Briatore even had to remove himself from the public eye to keep things from boiling over. But Agag believes the Italian was only acting with the intention of success in mind – it was not necessarily a matter of ego.
"Football fans... football fans..." he broods, asked by Autosport how he got on with the tribalism that engulfs most clubs, particularly when there is a disconnect between the owner and the fans (as this writer, a Charlton Athletic supporter, is all too aware).
"It's difficult to qualify. Football is a distorted business, where the owner has to put so much money in to be hated by the fans. It's very stupid to be a team owner – you spend all this money from your own pocket and then the fans, who spend £20, come and insult you.
The film plots the (at times crazy) journey that Agag et al embarked on in taking over QPR |
"The problem in football is everyone thinks they know everything. In motorsport, it's not that bad. Not everybody is an engineer, some people will give you an opinion about tyres or something, but in football everybody knows what to do with the first team, who you need, who to employ, who to sack.
"You spend your time listening to people telling you what to do! The experience from the point of view of the fans wasn't very good!"
There's one scene in the documentary where Briatore demands to know the names of those booing him in the stadium, "or I sell the club". Suffice to say if you've not seen The Four Year Plan, it's well worth an hour and a half of your time.
It's a thoroughly entertaining watch, probably more so than it should be. But despite the boos, the multiple sackings, and the ups and downs, Agag points out there was enjoyment to be had.
"There are millions of anecdotes," he says. "We had so much fun. Flavio wanted to say which players played. The manager [caretaker boss Gareth Ainsworth] resisted a little. Flavio said Gavin Mahon has to play, the manager said no. The score was 0-0, at home [against Cardiff City].
"Flavio said, 'Tell him he has to put this guy in' to Gianni Baldini, who went down to the masseur. And the last 10 minutes, he puts this guy in. First play this guy does, he scores. Flavio was jumping, 'See! See! I told you!'. There are millions of those…"
As you can tell, Agag – a football fan himself and Real Madrid club member no less – remembers the experience fondly. And the four-year plan, the Briatore promise from which the documentary got its name, was eventually a success.
After securing promotion the motorsport trio exited QPR, with a soon-to-be-familiar F1 face in Tony Fernandes taking charge. Agag, for his part, has no regrets.
"It was a very hands-on management style of QPR, which in the end paid off," he remembers. "We sacked seven managers until we found the right one, Neil Warnock, who took us to the Premier League. So we did the right thing.
"At the end the only way to judge a project is with the result. And we won. So I guess we did something right with it.
"Of course, people say the important thing is to participate and be a good sportsman, but I don't believe that. Winning is the objective. And we did, we won. And big credit to Amit and Flavio for that. We bought a club to the Premier League, a club that was bankrupt and bottom of the Championship, and saw it in the Premier League.
"It was a fantastic experience but with a lot of bumps in the road. It's a lot more unpredictable than the world of racing.
"I'm sure if you asked Flavio or Bernie if they'd buy another football club the answer would be no – definitely if you ask me, the answer would be no. I'd much rather be in motorsport."