The Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris has handed Flavio Briatore a legal victory over the FIA, but it is not much of a victory. The court ruled that the FIA did not have the jurisdiction to pass the judgement it decided in relation to Flavio Briatore. The court ruled that the decision was “irregular”. The court was clearly not much impressed by Briatore’s arguments, given the pathetically small damages granted, compared to those demanded. The court has ordered the FIA to notify all its members, including the thirteen teams involved in the F1 World Championship, about the order cancelling the decision that was made. The court will penalise the FIA $15,000 a day if it does not inform the membership of the decision. There is sure to be an appeal and there may also be a secondary judgement on Briatore as there are no rules of double indemnity in the FIA statutes and it is clear that there needs to be some punishment for what occurred in Singapore in 2008 if the sport is to have any credibility. It may be that the federation will ultimately have to institute a system of licensing for team owners if that is the only way that such abhorrent behaviour can be stopped.
I have just received a press statement from Briatore, which I had to read through gritted teeth. Self righteous twaddle was the expression that leapt to mind. However, here it is:
“I would like to express my great joy with the decision handed down by the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance. I believe it important for FIA to play the active role it deserves in automobile competition. As a sports person and one passionately involved in car racing for more than 20 years, the decision to apply to the civil courts to contest a decision of the FIA was a difficult one for me to take. The fact that the World Automobile Sport Council had been utilized to deal with a personal agenda aimed at pushing me out of the world of competition left me no other choice.
“The decision handed down today restores to me the dignity and freedom that certain people had arbitrarily attempted to deprive me of. The Court recognized that all the criticisms I had formulated against the decision of the World Council were founded, by finding that the FIA had:
– rendered a decision that it was not competent to pronounce
– infringed its own articles of association
– totally failed to respect my right to a fair defense
– finally, entrusted the tasks of investigation, prosecution and judgment to a principle [sic] player known by all to be hostile to me.
“I believe that justice has been done today.”
The press release added the following quote about whether he would be returning to F1.
“Let me take a little time to enjoy this moment of happiness after this difficult period. As concerns my possible return to F1, there is plenty of time to talk about this. I would like first of all to thank the people who remained faithful to me during these difficult moments and who showed me their trust and friendship.”
There are those who would question Flavio’s “passion” for car racing as his only apparent passion has been to use the sport to make money. He has said as much himself in the past, proving that what he says has very little real value.
There is also little or no talk of him returning to F1. Although getting people to say it on the record is tough, there is no doubt that the F1 does not want him back… Indeed it would be highly damaging for the sport to even attempt to embrace a man with such a stain on his record.
Max Mosley may have to take the blame for this – although the appeal process is not over yet – but it is fair to say, as he himself did the other day, that Briatore got away with many other charges before being nailed for Singapore 2008. Let us not forget the scandals of 1994, of McLaren data being found inside Renault computers in 2007 and so on.
The new FIA President Jean Todt is a man who knows a thing or two about challenging the FIA in court. Back in 1986 the FIA’s FISA Executive Committee met the day after the deaths of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Crespi on the Tour de Corse and voted to modify the rules of the World Rally Championship with Group B cars being banned in 1987. In July Peugeot announced that it would take legal action against the FIA and in March 1987 the Tribunal de Grande Instance ruled that Peugeot was right and condemned the FIA to pay 27m French Francs in damages. A year later the Court of Appeal in Paris overturned that decision and ruled that Peugeot should pay the legal costs. The court ruled that Peugeot’s claims were unfounded and that the company could not rule on issues of safety and that the FIA was “the only organiser of international events” with a right to make such rulings.
“I hope that from now on this will encourage manufacturers to respect the rules of the fedeartion and dissuade them from seeking action in the courts,” said FISA president Jean Marie Balestre at the time. “It establishes that the federation has an independence which allows it to make decisions with total autonomy.”
The circumstances were different, but the principles remain the same. The court has in effect ruled on an FIA disciplinary procedure. It could be argued that it has no right to do that.
Time will tell.
joeblogsf1 
Joe,
Regarding Pat Symonds, there was talk before Christmas that some of the teams had offered him a role pending the outcome of the appeal. Now that it’s confirmed, any thoughts as to where he might be going?
JamesF1,
Nothing is confirmed
If the FIA is not even allowed to punish Briatore indirectly by declaring a condition every FIA licence holder worldwide is required to adhere to (not working together with or employing FB and PS), then the question is of course: who or whom to punish instead?
The answer, I think, is (and always was, but Mosley has managed to distract our collective attention from it because he saw an opportunity to get FB out of F1) relatively straightforward but sort of unspeakable in the current climate of F1: punish the team and the driver. The team IS an FIA licence holder, as is NPJ. And having granted NPJ immunity, there is only the Renault team left to be handed a sanction of some sort.
The only alternative to handing a sanction to the Renault team would be to have no sanction at all against anyone – and do we really want to see that? “Sorry, it really was awful, unsporting and dangerous, but we can’t punish anyone. We can’t punish FB and PS because they’re not FIA licence holders, we can’t punish NPJ because we promised him not to, and we daren’t punish the Renault team because we don’t want to endanger the innocent workforce of the team and the parent company, and we also don’t want to see another manufacturer leaving F1. So please remember, everyone: It’s really totally and completely forbidden to crash on purpose, even if you witness now that those who do can yet get away with it.”
Jean Todt, are you listening?
—
Renault in turn could then claim damages from Messrs NPJ, PS and FB. This could still turn out to be quite costly for some people who are probably expecting nothing of sorts at the moment … especially NPJ who maybe still thinks he’s managed to get away with the whole thing, besides losing his F1 seat and a tarnished image, of course.
So now Flavio can have a party on his yacht for “the faithful”, and later he can sit alone in the dark with another bottle of wine, idly scratching his thong in self-satisfaction.
I suspect he will be back (and the Piquets as well) because money always talks to someone in F1. And there seems to be no end of groupies and wannabes and has beens (some of them even still in cars!), and they will blend right in.
Symonds is a more interesting case. Presumably he still has something to sell, at least in a background role.
As for the Court’s right to overrule the FIA, perhaps it could not avoid knowing there was more than a degree of damaged schoolboy viciousness in Briatore’s “ban”. Rather than simply terminating Briatore’s hope of a paddock pass for all time, it imposed a looming punishment on everyone else as well. So Max.
If Todt has learned anything it may be to let this one go to sleep. When Briatore reappears, then dealing with him in that specific context — should the need arise — is better left till then.
I’m glad he’s back. Or at least might be….
Crid,
That is a strange and very twisted point of view.
Even the guiltiest man deserves a fair trial. Briatore, no matter his sins, was not offered anything close to a fair trial by the FIA.
The FIA court system has long been little more than a fancy ceremony with which to deliver the dictates of the FIA president. FIA judgements of the Mosley era were largely prejudged, in many cases, even the penalties were pre-decided. In this case, the pre-decision was proven. An FIA representative admitted that Briatore’s verdict was decided BEFORE the hearing had even commenced.
Joe certainly has a dislike for Briatore, and I agree that Flavio has always been quite the scoundrel. That said, he is no more a scoundrel than either Mr. Ecclestone or Mosley. In fact, both Ecclestone and Mosley conspired countless time to overlook justice and pervert FIA court decisions. The two had previously conspired to get Flavio off the hook. While Briatore is quite the slippy character, on the whole, his list of offenses are no worse (and probably a lot shorter) than those of Ecclestone and Mosley.
Despite the consequences, there is a lot of good to be had in this decision. It may finally put a limit on the FIA’s dictatorial system of justice. It will perhaps force the FIA to provide a system of jurisprudence wherein an innocent defendant might actually walk free, even if that decision were at odds with the will of the FIA president.
No one can honestly suggest that any man entering the Mosley era FIA courts had anything resembling a fair shake. If this ruling changes the FIA’s draconian ways, it will have very much been worth it.
So let me get this straight: Today’s ruling means that there was virtually no punishment to Renault or those involved in fixing a race.
Rubbish.
gritted teeth? it is your soapbox after all, but I thought you were a journalist after all, not jury and party. Sorry if I offend feel free to censor this comment
ElChiva,
Alas, I fear that you do not understand the concept of a blog. It is not about straight news reporting. The definition of a blog is “a personal online journal that is intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author.”
Thus I can have any opinion I wish to have. No-one is forcing you to read it… If you want news, there are a million dull websites out there all copying one another – and unable to have an opinion.
and when I confront yours you dissmiss me, as i said it is your soapbox, i suggest you remove the comment feature Joe, no terrorists allowed…
ElChiva,
I am not dismissing you. I am explaining what a blog is… You do not expect objective reporting from a blog. That is why blogs are more interesting. It is really very simple. If you chose to take that as an attack on you then I can do nothing but if you read the words I wrote it is not an attack. It is an explanation.
The FIA is bound by French law, so the French courts can decide anything they like concerning the FIA provided it is compatible with French law. At the end of the day, the FIA is an organisation like any other and is subject to the laws of the jurisdiction under which its Articles of Association are written.
If the FIA contravened its own Statutes as suggested by the court judgement (compliance of which would surely form part of its Articles of Association), then the French court would have been acting against French law to sanction it. Otherwise any organisation may break any of its regulations at will without sanction, effectively detaching itself from legal oversight. No country would voluntarily allow that to happen because it has the same obligation to govern its affairs.
The effect is the same of an alleged drink-driver who the police officer on duty thinks must have drunk about 40 units of alcohol judging by the large number of empty containers on the back seat, but messes up the breathalyser test. In that situation the court is obliged to let the accused go free on procedural grounds, even if everyone secretly believes that the drink-driver is guilty.
In short: good idea on the FIA’s part, rubbish implementation.
> That is a strange and very twisted
> point of view.
Joe, “twisted” a pretty harsh word. I mean no personal offense, but….
I’ll never understand why you hate Flavio so much. About five times on the front page of the blog, you talk about worrying for the “sport”, as if [A] competitive spirits won’t always find their own best homes and [B] sport wasn’t something righteously pursued for commercial purposes (which would be news to the sponsors). I don’t care that he’s in it for the money! He wins honest championships. (At this part, it’s hard to imagine Ecclestone’s motivations are so sporting.)
So what are the six golden behaviors that are permitted to a sportsman? Is there a list?
Are you angry that Flavio isn’t an engineer? I bet Hamilton and Glock aren’t that good at calculating fluid dynamics, either. They probably couldn’t heat the oil to turn their own cars on, but they’re sportsmen.
Is it the cheating? You seem to want to hold Benneton’s 1994 transgressions against Briatore more than any of us want to hold McLaren’s 2007 foolishness against Dennis.
Is it the wealth and the busty young wife? I *love* him for those things. Somerset Maugham called Monaco “a sunny place full of shady people”, and it was fun to see all the team principals shuffling onto Flavio’s yacht in the harbor last year for that meeting. And Lord knows a visual enterprise like F1 needs all the smiling underwear models it can find.
We just do not know what the source of the bad blood was between Max & Flav. Or what was going on contractually with the manufacturers and the drivers and the sponsors. Flavio was going to make a boatload of money from F1 in 2008 whether Renault won in Singapore or not, but we’re expected to believe that he brusquely compelled an incompetent young man to risk his life and those of countless others in an accident one-third of the way through a race on an untested circuit to increase the odds for Renault. This seems highly improbable. And if there were a smoking gun, some interested party would tell us what it is, rather than just saying “Renault didn’t support Flavio.” Maybe he had them in an untenably expensive contract… Who knows?
And I’ll never, EVER understand why people are so patient with Nelsinho. Anyone who really, really believes this is all about the sanctity of human life must first want to see the young Piquet in prison… I certainly do. Then we can talk about the office-workers.
Aside from Singapore, what is it about Briatore that you find so gruesome? Is it something worse than Ryan and Hamilton in Melbourne?
For the record, it’s your opinion of Flavio that makes me happy he might return! The sport needs garlic personalities. We lost something precious when Max handed Dennis his head on a platter last spring.
Crid,
Twisted, is not meant rudely, it is a simply a description of what I think of your views. If you prefer not to examine other possibilities then there is nothing I can do to help you get closer to the realities. For now we can only hint at those realities. What makes you think that Bernie is not a racer? Sure, he likes making money and doing deals but under all that cynicism and pragmatism is a man who loves the sport and is doing what he thinks is best for it. We may not agree with what he does. What makes you think that Max hates Flavio? These are people playing power games with one another. Max nailed Flavio because Flavio left himself open to be nailed – and because he deserved it. Max is many things and his methods are often rather strange but the central premise is to do what is best for the sport. I do not always agree with him but I do believe that.
As to your views of what the sport needs I feel that you are looking for a Punch & Judy Show in a place where others are trying to hold serious honest competition. You might get more satisfaction going to a circus.
So now we face the prospect that a cheat (the court did not overturn the verdict, just the punishment) will be allowed back into the sport and that we may have to witness this baffoons visage on our screens once again?
How on earth could FIA have a re-trial for Symonds and Flavio, as they still don´t have any licencees that would be bound to FIA?
And if FIA is serious about the ban for “intentional cheaters” they talk about in their press release, then surely this would be the end of Schumachers comeback…
According to grandprix.com the FIA’s statement includes the following:
“In addition, the FIA intends to consider appropriate actions to ensure that no persons who would engage, or who have engaged, in such dangerous activities or acts of intentional cheating will be allowed to participate in Formula One in the future.”
The interesting words to me are “or who have”, which suggests they will make retrospective penalties.
If they use such a mechanism to punish Flav and Pat what will they do about the others?
Joe,
Once you and others get past your opinions of Flavio, you might want to address a fact that you will probably find unpalatable : it is very likely that the real brains behind almost ALL of the cheating scandals he was involved in were Pat Symonds’s. I doubt Flavio did much more than rubber-stamp the ideas Pat came up with.
Do you seriously think Flav has enough technical and strategic nous to come up with ideas like the Benetton fuel filter, or Option 13, the 2007 stolen info scandal, or indeed Crashgate? Oh please, pull the other one.
Pat, on the other hand is widely recognised as one of the best technical and strategic brains in the sport. He has all the appropriate intellectual tools at his disposal. Flavio doesn’t, indeed, he’s proud of it! That Symonds is widely portrayed as a saintly man led astray by the Devil himself is laughable.
Random : I agree with your every word. And Flav at least brought some much needed colour to the increasingly grey world of F1.
I don’t imagine any team will really want him, at least not yet, but I expect and hope that Pat Symonds, collateral damage to Max’s obsession with Flav, will soon be back.
byw Joe : re licences for team principals etc. is this really a good idea ? Will it not mean even more self-censorship and brown-nosing than there is now ?
Of course this is an opinion blog and not the New York Times, from which some legally-defensible reasoning must defend every offering. That’s why I’m here and hammering the point.
> If you prefer not to examine other possibilities
> then there is nothing I can do to help you get
> closer to the realities.
What’s to examine? What information am I missing?
> For now we can only hint at those realities.
To hear that from a journalist is to hear a claim to secret knowledge. If you can “only hint” at them, why are the rest of us to be mocked for not courageously looking at them? There’s only the one reality that’s of interest.
> These are people playing power games
> with one another.
Yes, and they’re doing it in camera. So there’s no particular way to assign virtue to one or another when someone scores a victory. I thought the lies of Melbourne were probably indeed worth Ryan’s job… But not Dennis’. And maybe there should have been some discussion about penalties for Hamilton. But since it was all about private deals and not justice, the sport was besmirched.
Except for Singapore, there doesn’t seem to be anything factual out there to make Flavio into a distinctively odious guy. And Singapore was a weirdly- and thickly-fogged sequence of events. If the FIA wanted to be taken seriously as a defender of human life, they’d have given us much more evidence than a snarky assertion that ‘Renault agrees with us’… Especially when during the only public hearings of the event, we heard the French manufacture grovelling and offering to throw uncounted (uncounted!) millions at some nebulous safety campaign.
To call these “power games” and Ecclestone a sincere sportsman seems a concession since Bernie has made welcoming comments about Flavio in the wake of the French ruling.
> you are looking for a Punch & Judy Show
> in a place where others are trying to
> hold serious honest competition.
Why? Why the insult? What’s ‘Punch & Judy’ about wanting to know why this man is so loathed? The field was often tighter than two seconds of this year, and the top of the grid was a boiling surface. Frickin’ Force India took a pole! The “honest competition” couldn’t be much tighter.
A subsequent commenter bemoans the “grey world of F1” with the Flavios excluded, and I agree. He was a blustery guy who made a bunch of money for a bunch of people in the sport, and seemed to have colorfully-shifting allegiances… I’ll never forget him throwing down his headset after Schuey parked at Rascasse, nor how he was slapping him on the back during a visit in the pits a few months later. Again: His victories (championships!) were as fun as anyone’s. Those of us who don’t spend our lives looking at engines on dynometers were pleased to have a normally glandular human being in one of the big chairs at the table.
But maybe this can go to far…
> it is very likely that the real brains behind
> almost ALL of the cheating scandals he
> was involved in were Pat Symonds’s
Having no close familiarity with these guys, I had the sense that if Flavio could have cut Symonds loose, he’d have done it.
Crid,
Go check the laws of libel some time and perhaps, if you will open you mind, you will understand.
This particular boil goes back to at least 1994 and should have been lanced long ago. It would be interesting to hear Tom Walkinshaw’s views at this point…
If Tom had a beef, he should have aired it at the time. I think the FIA was rather generous then as well.
Interesting. Joe obviously doesn’t like Briatore 🙂
I disagree. Court didn’t “in effect ruled on an FIA disciplinary procedure”. FIA in fact gave up on its rights by not punishing the correct person: team or/and driver, which was done anyway due to bloody political reasons. It’s too late to cry now…
Again, insults don’t really sell a belief to an open mind. If you ever want to tell us why….
Joe I think that as a reader it remains necessary for the author to distance himself from time to time from a response. While I will not take a side on this matter I do feel that getting involved in teaching each dissenting voice about their missteps will become a waste of time for you.
As a blog you can journal your thoughts, and others can respond, but there is not need for you to defend your ideas. Often times these matters run the shades of grey. Characters are perceived one way or another and we respond to their self-image when describing them. Flav is a boisterous man, this has been seen countless times even from the distant seat of my couch on a sunday morning. When reflecting on the man I can’t help be hold a begrudging concept of him unless he proves otherwise. This does not mean I hate the man, nor does it mean you do either. We are merely responding to the personality of them, and they present their personality so it only seems fair to respond this way.
Regarding colourful characters in sport, there are plenty examples of where these people get more credit then they are due. Ask any Canadian about Don Cherry and you will have a similar response. YouTube Don Cherry sometime, he’s a ex-coach who is a commentator, he’s paid over $700,000 a year to make a 6 min speech on saturday. It [his opinion] is reflective about the sport. Its colourful and distasteful most of the time. I love Hockey, its a nice fast paced and skilled sport but when the levels of testosterone jump people throw fists. Look at other sports, American football you get dog fighters, people who jump into the back of moving trucks etc. Is that what we want to remember from the sport? No.
We want to remember the actions during the contest, the triumphs of competition. Not the man with the biggest boat or who can cheat and get away with it. To have professional teams with ‘boring’ drivers is rarely a recipe for success. The drivers that excel are often those who have some character, but that does not mean character makes someone successful. Think about how many also ran’s there have been in F1. How many men raced 1, or a hundred races without a win. Of them how many are memorable (character wise)? The sport doesn’t need bright characters, its needs to be a sport. I agree with Joe on this, if you want entertainment watch Idol… I ant to see skill pay off not, threatened by cheats and subversiveness.
just so I know what I have here…
I have just recently found this blog, as a huge fan of many British journalists, including Nigel Roebuck.
I very much enjoy the readings and opinions of those close to the sport, whether or not I agree fully with them.
I read through the comments here and someone (Crid) innocently remarks that they look forward to seeing Flav back on the grid. The Moderator/owner of this blog throws out a personal insult and spends many comments fending or delivering subtle insults to his readers.
As has been stated before, it is your blog, but it does appear odd to have to remark to someone expressing their opinion that they are “twisted”. As an experienced journalist, can’t you just respect the opinion of one of your readers without criticism of them?
Regarding Flav – if we really want him out of F1 the person to be angry with is Max Mosley.
As a supposed “shark lawyer” and with all the evidence in front of him, it seems he did everyone a disservice by running Flav out of the sport the way he did.
Flav has now turned into some kind of martyr and Max only has himself to thank for that. If only, if only…