Formula One news

Briatore: Spy scandal involves me

Flavio Briatore says he is keeping a close eye on how the spy scandal develops and will attend the appeal court hearing. Although the Ferrari-McLaren saga does not involve Renault directly, the team principal feels it is damaging to the sport's reputation such is its dominance in the media.

"We already had somebody in Paris last time (for the orginial hearing on 26 July)," Briatore told a press conference.

Although it would seem logical that Renault might support a penalty against McLaren given that the team is behind the Woking-based oufit in the standings, Briatore is not siding with Ferrari. Instead he claims that he has the sport's best interests at heart.

"I am in Formula One like McLaren and Ferrari," he explained. "This issue about this story involves everybody sooner or later and I want to know exactly what is going on because I think it is part of our job. If you see the newspapers in the last two months we are not talking about which drivers won the race, lost the race…

"The spy story, if you want, was predominating everything and because we are part of this business we demand to know exactly what is going on because it is probably damaging everybody a little bit including me, including everybody. Stuff like this is not good for the sponsors, it is not good for anybody. We hope we find a final step and we hope something happens. I think that is the way we stop talking about that."

On the other hand Christian Horner, who is team principal of Renault-powered Red Bull Racing, believes it is better to trust in the FIA's handling of the matter and keep out of it.

"The matter doesn't concern our team or any employees of our team and we trust in the governing body to make the right decisions," he said.

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