Ferrari Mailing List: The bloviation of Briatore [Spoiler]

[Ken Rentiers (rentiers]

Renault launches attack
Sportal

Renault team chief Flavio Briatore has launched a scathing attack on  
Formula One, claiming it is fixed and that this year's title had been  
decided 'at a table'.

Briatore supported earlier comments from Renault's world champion  
driver Fernando Alonso after he was penalised for blocking Ferrari's  
Felipe Massa during qualification for the Italian Grand Prix.

Alonso was pushed back from fifth to tenth on the grid, and later  
said that Formula One was 'no longer a sport'.

Michael Schumacher went on to take the win at Monza, cutting Alonso's  
lead in the championship to just two points after the Spaniard failed  
to finish.

Alonso was forced to retire when his engine blew on lap 44, but  
Briatore felt that the race had already been decided well before  
Alonso's retirement.

"What happened on Sunday isn't the problem," he told Italy's state  
television company RAI.

"It is what happened before the race which is strange. This is a  
world championship, which has already been decided at the table."

"We have understood how things go - it has all been decided ... they  
have decided to give the world championship to Schumacher and that is  
what will be," he said.

He compared his claims about race-fixing in Formula One to the  
scandal surrounding Italian soccer, in which Juventus, like Ferrari  
owned by Fiat, were found guilty of match-fixing and relegated from  
Serie A to Serie B.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo chose not to answer the claims.

"While I accept that there are people who talk about Ferrari from  
time to time, there is someone who talks too much and who missed a  
good opportunity to stay quiet," he told AFP

"In life you need to have a little bit of class and so I prefer not  
to respond."

Both Briatore and Alonso may be called to explain their comments at  
an extraordinary meeting of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council  
scheduled for September 19.

"The comments attributed to the Renault team principal have been  
noted by the FIA and are under consideration," an FIA spokesman said.