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Former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore has demanded £900,000 in damages and for his lifetime F1 ban to be overturned at a court hearing in Paris.
The flamboyant Italian, who is also a co-owner of Queens Park Rangers, has taken action against Formula One’s governing body the FIA, claiming he had been denied his right to a free and fair defence.
“My client only aims to be able to do what he wants and to recover his freedom. He is calm and determined,” Briatore’s lawyer Philippe Ouakrat told reporters before the hearing.
Briatore was handed a life ban by the FIA in September for his role in a race-fixing scandal at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix. Daily Mail
The case was brought by the FIA after sacked driver Nelson Piquet gave sworn evidence that Briatore and Renault’s technical head Pat Symonds had asked him to crash out of the sport’s first night race at Singapore in 2008 to help team-mate Fernando Alonso win.
Renault boss Flavio Briatore says he has every confidence that his lifetime ban from Formula One will be overturned on appeal.
Legal action in the French high court began yesterday in Paris and after the hearing the judge said a verdict would be published on January 5. Mirror.co.uk
FIA’s lawyers told the court Briatore deserved his ban as he had “undermined the sport’s ethic and the credibility of the competition and (had) put other people’s security at risk”.
According to the sporting code, the FIA can hand out any sanction it wants in such a case, they added.
The FIA did not have to apply the rules for a fair trial as it was an internal procedure and not a judicial one, FIA’s lawyers said.
The Paris court ruling will be closely watched outside Formula One, with Briatore a co-owner of Championship club Queens Park Rangers.
If the ban is upheld, the Italian could be forced out of the club under the league’s fit-and-proper persons rule. Yahoo! Eurosport
