Briatore ban overturned
Flavio Briatore is free to return to Formula One after a French court today overturned his lifetime ban from motorsport.
The FIA handed the former Renault team principal the stringent suspension in September for his role in the ’crashgate’ scandal.
The 59-year-old Italian took his case to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris claiming the FIA did not have legal grounds to issue him with a wholesale ban.
Renault's former director of engineering, Pat Symonds, has also had his five-year suspension quashed by the TGI.
However, Briatore and Symonds have only received €15,000 and €5,000 apiece in damages after initially seeking €1m and €500,000 respectively.
The FIA now have 15 days to pay the duo, otherwise they will be liable to a penalty of €10,000 per day.
According to French media, the judge presiding over the case is understood to have claimed the FIA’s sanction “was illegal.”
Briatore was involved in a conspiracy which saw Nelson Piquet Jnr deliberately crash his car at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to help team-mate Fernando Alonso take the win.
Although Briatore threatened legal action against Piquet Jnr and father, Nelson Piquet Snr, that was soon dropped.
Then just five days before the World Motor Sport Council sat in judgment on Renault on September 21, Briatore and Symonds vacated their positions at the team.
After the FIA handed out the sentences, Briatore later claimed former FIA president Max Mosley was “blinded by an excessive desire for personal revenge” in pursuing the case.
In a statement in November, Briatore added: “The decisions to carry out an investigation and to submit it to the World Council were taken by the same person, Max Mosley, the FIA president.”
Briatore further asserted Mosley “assumed the roles of complainant, investigator, prosecutor and judge,” claiming the case against him was a breach of the “most basic rules of procedure and the rights to a fair trial.”
Briatore’s claim the FIA World Council, chaired by Mosley, was out for “personal revenge” stemmed from his involvement in plans for a breakaway series.
It was an issue which rumbled on through much of last season before an agreement was reached for manufacturers to stay in Formula One.
A further knock-on effect for Briatore is that he is also clear to continuing his ownership of Coca-Cola Championship club QPR.
If the TGI had upheld the ban, the Football League would have had a case against Briatore, potentially citing him as not fit and proper to run one of their clubs.
