Formula One news

Briatore insists upon Renault innocence

Flavio Briatore has come out fighting in the face of allegations that his Renault team may have breached the rules as one of its employees had allegedly showed some technical drawings of McLaren systems to colleagues. 

"When we found out in September, we talked with the guy [the employee in question], we started an investigation and immediately suspended the guy and then immediately we informed McLaren and the FIA," Briatore told The Times. "We gave to Mr Mosley all the correspondence and the evidence and a statement from our engineers making clear we never used any McLaren system in our car."

"The information was in the computer, it was in the disks that this guy brought," Briatore added. "It was very simple. It was a drawing of a few systems, it was part of a drawing of the gearbox and was part of a drawing of a mass-damper. I am confident the information was not used and not only me. We have witness statements from every engineer that was involved and, categorically, everybody says that there was no influence of any of these things on the design of our car."

"We were happy to let them inspect our computer, we wanted to give McLaren the opportunity to check that there was no influence on the design of our car, but they never took up the offer," Briatore concluded.

The FIA will hear the case against Renault next month in Monaco.

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