Briatore and Symonds could be back in F1 for 2013 as the FIA drop appeal
The FIA has dropped it’s appeal against a French court ruling that it’s punishment of Flavio Britore and Pat Symonds formerly of Renault. This whole saga seems to be based around an apology from the pair that means they now acknowledge their part in the scandal following on from the Singapore race fixing.
Their actual punishment now means that they can’t take part in any FIA competition until the end of the 2011 season and any F1 involvement until 2013. Apart from the fact that no F1 of any significance would want to hire these two after what has happened it remains to be seen what 4 years out from the sport would mean for an engineer/manager. Geoff Willis has already been commenting on the state of the HRT Cosworth car that was built by people outside of the paddock so would a four year exile have the same effect on Symonds? Briatore has already shown that he can return to F1 and get results.
Would these two even want to return to F1? I doubt they will be welcomed with open arms? I guess they must otherwise they wouldn’t have contested the punishment quite so fervently. I wonder if by the time they can return the manufacturers will have returned along with the world economy and the whole scandal will have been forgotten about in board rooms by then? Perhaps they will come back through the back door of advisory roles? I’m still dubious that they’ll ever work properly in F1 again though.
The whole Singapore scandal has ruined the careers of 3 people within F1 and the net gain? Fernando Alonso won a race, I’m sure at the time it meant a lot to Renault but was it really worth it? There’s also the matter of the rather stupid decision to sack the driver that you’ve asked to fix races.
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