Briatore’s life ban from motor racing overturned

Former Renault boss Flavio Briatore has had his lifetime ban from all motorsport overturned by a court in France, meaning he can return to Formula 1.
 
The controversial Italian was thrown out of the sport in disgrace last September after it emerged that he had ordered one of his drivers to crash during the Singapore Grand Prix of 2008.
 
But Briatore went to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris - the French high court - arguing that the sport's governing body, the FIA, did not have the power to issue him with such a punishment. The court agreed and quashed the ban on both Briatore and Renault's former director of engineering, Pat Symonds, who had been suspended for five years. To rub salt into the FIA's wounds, the court also ordered it to pay Briatore €15,000 and Symonds €5,000 in compensation.
 
The FIA now has 15 days to pay the duo, otherwise it will be liable to a penalty of €10,000 a day. But the FIA's legal team has indicated it will appeal.
 
The scandal came to light last year when former Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jnr revealed that he had been ordered to crash out of the race in order to help teammate Fernando Alonso. The World Motor Sport Council ruled that the breaches of its code were of "unparalleled severity".
 
A Renault internal investigation found that Briatore, Symonds and Piquet Jr had conspired to cause the crash with no other team member involved. Piquet Jr was spared punishment for coming clean.
 
It is not clear if Briatore, who is a co-owner of football club QPR, wants to work for a Formula 1 team again. But he manages several Formula 1 drivers including Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen, and was angry that he would have to sever ties with them. ·