Renault are confident the
Formula One championship is being run fairly and without favouritism, team boss
Flavio Briatore said on Monday.
Speaking a day after his controversial outburst on Italy's RAI television, in
which he compared F1 to Italian soccer's match-fixing scandal and suggested
Ferrari were being favoured, Briatore told Reuters that he had been
misunderstood.
"We have full confidence in everything...we never believed that they (the
governing body) were manipulating anything against Renault," he said in an
interview. "I am sure of the integrity of the stewards, of this I am 100 percent
sure."
Briatore felt, however, that the rules needed to be reviewed to ensure
drivers were punished only for deliberate blocking actions in qualifying rather
than unintentional misdemeanours.
Renault's world champion Fernando Alonso was demoted five places to 10th on
Sunday's Italian Grand Prix starting grid after stewards ruled that the Spaniard
had impeded Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa.
Alonso, who left Monza with his lead over Ferrari's Michael Schumacher
slashed from 12 points to two after an engine failure, was adamant he had not
blocked Massa and said bitterly on Sunday that Formula One was no longer a
sport.
RULE CHANGE
"What we need to do in the future is identify really what is the spirit of
the rules," said 56-year-old Briatore.
"The spirit in qualifying was that if someone intentionally stops you doing
your lap time, they should be punished. This was the intention, or we should put
it this way.
"The stewards have Ferrari's telemetry and maybe in that there is some proof
that Fernando upset Massa. But for sure Fernando did not want to disturb Massa's
lap," he added.
"For us, Massa on pole position is better than Schumacher on pole."
Briatore excused Alonso's anger as that of a young man whose emotions were
inevitably running high at a crucial stage of the championship.
Briatore's own words, including the comment that "they have decided to give
the world championship to Schumacher' and a reference to the 'calciopoli'
football scandal, had been simply misunderstood.
"Sure, we are not happy, this is normal. But all this stuff was too
emotional. When we were talking about it, it was a kind of a provocation, a kind
of a joke. People took it too seriously, all the situation," he said.
"It was a remark turned differently to my intention.
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"We accept the position of the stewards. I accept their decisions all the
time. Fernando is 25 years old, he was very emotional about that and he feels
it. But we never want to interfere with the decisions of the stewards.
"The stewards have more elements than me to judge the situation.
"Today is Monday and it is finished, done, gone," he added.
Briatore, who could be charged with bringing the sport into disrepute by the
governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) after his comments on
Sunday, made clear that he did not want any bad blood.
"We want to fight to the last race, we want to win the championship. That's
the bottom line," he said.
"We respect the decisions of the federation because this is why we are in the
world championship, we accept the power and decisions of the federation.
"I support (FIA president) Max (Mosley) completely," added Briatore.
"When we are talking about engines rules and that situation I think Max has
done very good...I am a friend of Max and I respect what he is doing for Formula
One and Renault supports him completely.
"During the race sometimes you are a little bit too emotional," added the
Italian, who last week signed up for two more years at the Renault helm.
"That's why I still love this business, because it gives emotion. Sometimes
its good emotion and sometimes it's bad."
