I distinctly remember, as the person responsible for marketing, being handed a fax that outlined the deal. That fax was signed by Rocco Benetton, who was the team boss at the time. It wasn’t a sponsorship deal, that would’ve been impossible for us from a financial standpoint, but rather a ‘supplier’ deal. That means you supply the team with certain goods, and in return you get some rights. I wasn’t sure what to do with it to be honest, since I’m not a big car enthusiast. I also didn’t know the first thing about formula 1, let alone how big it was and what the impact would be. But the deal seemed pretty ok, we were to supply shoes, belts and bags to the entire team. Those teams are huge, but in the end we figured it was doable. And so, on a whim and without a master plan, my brother and I decided to go for it.

Part of the deal was that we could use the Benetton Formula 1 team’s logo to advertise a range of shoes. We already had a sporty Floris van Bommel shoe that would be ideal for it, so we renamed that the ‘Formula 1’ shoe. On the day of the press release, the phone was ringing off the hook. That evening, news vans were parked outside our factory to report live on the situation, and the next morning we were headlining every national newspaper. “Van Bommel enters Formula 1”, that’s something I didn’t expect as head of marketing.

In the end our cooperation lasted for three years. The ‘Formula 1’ shoe became our best-selling model to date and it gave our company a nice image boost. Along the way, my brother and me had some great adventures in the formula 1 universe. We visited the race car factory in England, joined the presentation of the new cars at Renault’s Paris headquarters, and dined with the top of Renault Formula 1 on the Champs-Élysées. During that dinner, being one of the smallest partners, we were discreetly placed behind a planter, right next to the door to the kitchen. The big sponsors were sat at a beautiful table with team boss Flavio Briatore, the drivers, and the head designers as their conversation partners. The less important you were as a partner, the less important you were as a dinner guest of the team. We were at a table with the 6th test driver. The fact that that person was Fernando Alonso, who would end up being a two-time world champion, is another amazing story.”