Disgraced F1 team boss appeals lifetime ban

On this day 16 years ago, Flavio Briatore launched a legal challenge against his lifetime ban from F1 as his legal team argued the FIA had exceeded its authority in imposing the unprecedented sanction over the Crashgate scandal.

The former Renault team principal announced his intention to appeal the World Motor Sport Council's decision on October 19, just weeks after receiving what was then the harshest penalty in motorsport history for his role in orchestrating Nelson Piquet Jr's deliberate crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

The controversial incident allowed Renault's Fernando Alonso to pit at a convenient time before going on to win the grand prix. 

'Crashgate' soon ballooned into one of the biggest controversies in F1 history and came to light after Piquet was dismissed from the team midway through the 2009 campaign.

With the action launched on November 24, Briatore's legal team challenged the ban on multiple procedural grounds, arguing the FIA had violated fundamental principles of due process during their investigation. 

They argued that Briatore had been denied a fair defence and claimed the sanctions were rooted in a personal vendetta against Briatore rather than objective justice.

The lifetime ban, announced on September 21, extended beyond F1 to all FIA-sanctioned events and included restrictions on driver management, effectively barring Briatore from obtaining or renewing superlicences for any drivers under his representation.

The appeal was heard in French courts, with Briatore seeking both the overturning of his ban and compensation for what his team described as a flawed disciplinary process that had failed to meet basic standards of procedural fairness.

It ultimately proved successful, as in early January 2010, the ban was overturned. 

In May 2024, Briatore returned to the Enstone team running under the Alpine moniker, where he is now operating as the de facto team principal once again.