Hearing was a 'sham' says Briatore

Saturday, 14 November 2009 12:25

Flavio Briatore has described the World Motor Sport Council hearing that imposed his indefinite ban from international motor racing involvement as a "sham".

The former Renault boss is taking legal action against the governing body over his punishment.

After the FIA criticised Briatore for leaking elements of his case to the press earlier this week, the Italian issued a counter-statement criticising the September hearing.

"The FIA neglects to mention that, according to declarations by one of its own vice-presidents to the media, the world council's decision was rather the outcome of secret negotiations on the eve of the sham hearing," Reuters quotes Briatore's statement as saying.

It is believed that the 'secret negotiations' allegation refers to a an Abu Dhabi newspaper quoting FIA vice-president Mohamed Ben Sulayem as saying "We are not here to hang teams, we did our negotiations before and everybody is happy with the result" following the hearing.

Briatore declined to attend the hearing, which considered whether Renault had brought the sport into disrepute by ordering its number two driver Nelson Piquet to crash deliberately in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

The accident prompted a safety car and allowed Piquet's team-mate Fernando Alonso to vault to the front of the field and go on to win the race, having pitted early after a qualifying failure left him in the midfield in a car that had been among the pace-setters all weekend.

Renault decided not to contest the charges, but parted company with Briatore and its engineering chief Pat Symonds shortly before the hearing.

The FIA was satisfied that only Briatore, Symonds and Piquet were involved in the plot, so only imposed a suspended ban on Renault.

Symonds was barred from motorsport involvement for five years, while Piquet was given immunity from punishment in exchange for bringing the scandal to light and giving evidence.

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