Two former F1 drivers have defended Ferrari’s right to favour Fernando Alonso for the 2010 world championship.

The Italian team faced the wrath of spectators and the media recently after moving Felipe Massa out of the way for Spaniard Alonso at Hockenheim.

Ferrari will again be defending its actions at a World Motor Sport Council disciplinary hearing next month.

But Nelson Piquet Jr believes it is up to his Brazilian countryman Massa to prove that he is the driver Ferrari should be backing.

“It’s hard for Massa that Alonso came into the team later but is faster,” Piquet, who was Alonso’s Renault teammate in 2008 and early 2009, told the Brazilian newsmagazine Istoe.

“But Ferrari will not miss an opportunity to give a driver the opportunity to close the gap to the championship leaders,” added the ‘crashgate’ conspirator.

“If Massa doesn’t want this to happen, then he has to work out a way to go faster than Alonso — there’s nothing else he can do.

“Because if he’d been ahead of Alonso in the championship, it would have been him going past,” said Piquet.

Former 10-time GP winner and Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger agrees with Piquet that Alonso is the driver Ferrari should be concentrating on for the rest of 2010.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” the Austrian is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport.

“Alonso is clearly the better man in the team; their only chance for the world championship.

“(Ferrari president Luca di) Montezemolo went shopping for him and he is going to play this card as hard as he can,” added Berger.

The latest name linked with the hopeful American outfit Cypher Group is Nelson Piquet Jr.

22-year-old Indy Lights driver Jonathan Summerton has already confirmed he is working with the team to form “the American F1 team with an American driver”.

Italiaracing.net reports that Piquet, the Brazilian and crashgate conspirator, is also being linked with Cypher.

Since being ousted by Renault mid last season, the 24-year-old has been racing mainly in NASCAR’s lower-tier truck series.

It is also reported that Cypher has recruited Steve Brown, the former Brawn GP research and development engineer who switched to the abortive USF1 last year.

Flavio Briatore stands to benefit financially if Mark Webber wins the 2010 world championship, according to a German report.
Italian Briatore, the crashgate conspirator and former Renault team boss, is still the Australian Red Bull driver’s manager.

And amid reports the 60-year-old is attending a string of grands prix ahead of possibly assuming a future role alongside Bernie Ecclestone, Germany’s Bild newspaper gives a different theory for Briatore’s presence.

Bild said Webber’s contract extension for 2011 is for just 8 million euros, but that as champion the 33-year-old will be in a position to negotiate a much higher retainer, with “a 20 per cent commission for his manager”.

After winning at Silverstone, and in the midst of the front wing saga, Webber revealed that he spoke to Briatore before the race “and he said ‘Mark, just make a good start’.”

Bild said it suspects Briatore was behind Webber’s public comments including “not bad for a number two driver”, and “I would never have signed a contract again for next year”.

“He knows that public pressure can bring his client a better deal,” said the newspaper.

In a sport and a paddock from which he is supposed to be banned, Flavio Briatore is making his presence solidly felt this weekend in Monaco.

With the crashgate scandal still fresh in the memories of F1 regulars, Briatore’s huge yacht Force Blue was spotted earlier this week in the Monte Carlo harbour.

The 60-year-old, implicated in the Singapore 2008 race-fixing scandal and banned for life by the FIA last year, then made his first personal appearance of the event by attending a party on Vijay Mallya’s nearby Indian Empress yacht on Thursday night.

With Jean Todt now in charge of the governing body in the wake of Max Mosley’s reign, a recent ban settlement means that Briatore and his crash conspirator Pat Symonds will be allowed to work in F1 again in 2013.

But the original World Motor Sport Council ban had ordered officials “not to permit Mr Briatore access to any areas” at FIA-sanctioned events.

On Friday in Monaco, Briatore lunched with Bernie Ecclestone, the Italian’s friend and business partner who has issued the ousted Renault boss a paddock pass as his personal guest.

Todt told the Associated Press that Briatore, wearing a blue t-shirt, is “free” to be inside the paddock because he does not have an “active role” with a team.

Meanwhile, spotted aboard his yacht ‘Iceman’ in the Monaco habour on Friday was the Citroen rally driver Kimi Raikkonen.

(GMM)

Three years after the ‘spygate’ scandal of 2007, a case alleging sabotage by espionage conspirator Nigel Stepney began in Italy on Wednesday.

As the Monaco paddock is set up on Wednesday, the case harks back to the fabled street race of 2007, with sacked former chief mechanic Stepney accused of trying to ruin Ferrari’s chances by adding white powder to the fuel tanks.

According to reports including by the ANSA news agency, the trial began on Wednesday in a court in Sassuolo, in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region.

Briton Stepney did not appear in person, the German news agency SID reported.

Apr.21 (GMM)  Flavio Briatore has revealed he has no intention of attempting to reconcile his broken relationship with former F1 colleague Max Mosley.

In his last year of FIA presidency in 2009, Mosley oversaw the imposition of ousted Renault team boss Briatore’s lifetime ban over the crashgate scandal.

But Mosley has since turned 70 and is now effectively retired, replaced by Jean Todt who has halted crashgate by agreeing to end Briatore’s ban in 2013.

Italian Briatore, now 60, also celebrated a birthday this month, and is currently at home with his model wife Elisabetta and their newly born son Falco.

But he told the Italian magazine Chi that he is not interested in making up with Mosley.

“He sent me a text message to congratulate us on the birth of Falco, but Mosley is part of my former life.  In my future there will be no place for him,” said Briatore.

“I’m happy for Jean (Todt),” the Italian added, “my friend of 20 years.  Thanks to him, the FIA can now quietly and serenely breathe new air.”

Briatore, who has always maintained his innocence despite conspirators Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet admitting to plotting the deliberate crash of Singapore 2008, said he is not about to forgive the stain on his reputation.

“It was very bad for my story.  I suffered an injustice.  But the truth, the power of the truth, wins every time,” he insisted.

Despite the FIA agreeing to end its push to have a lifetime ban re-imposed, Flavio Briatore insists he is not guilty of race-fixing.

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with the sacked Renault boss as well as ‘crashgate’ co-conspirator Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached to end the scandal.

The FIA said the duo “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies”, in return for all legal action being dropped and the bans being effective only until 2013.

But Briatore, who turned 60 on Monday, later clarified that his regret and apology was not an admission of “personal guilt”.

The Italian’s statement, issued by his lawyers, also insisted that the settlement was not a recognition that the FIA’s verdict about Nelson Piquet Jr’s deliberate Singapore crash being true was “well-founded”.

“No further comment will be made by Flavio Briatore, who wishes to put behind him this matter and focus on his plans for the future,” added the statement.
GMM

F1’s governing body on Monday announced that, after talks with Singapore race-fixing conspirators Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, a settlement has been reached.

Briatore and Symonds were banned from motor racing by the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council for ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to crash during the 2008 Singapore GP, but the former Renault chiefs won an appeal against the decision in the French courts.

The FIA’s appeal against that decision was pending.

But it was announced on Monday that the duo have now “expressed their regrets and presented their apologies to the FIA”.

In return, the Paris-based Federation has dropped its legal action, and Briatore and Symonds have agreed to “abstain from having any operational role in formula one until 31 December 2012″.
(GMM)