Renault team boss Flavio Briatore has weighed into the on-going F1 'espionage' saga, suggesting the McLaren-Mercedes team could easily have gained a very useful technical advantage by simply being in possession of confidential Ferrari information, such as the car's fuel tank size and weight distribution. "When everything is played within one tenth of a second, any information on your rivals, even if partial, is important," he told Gazzetta dello Sport late last week.

Briatore has also announced that Renault will attend the FIA Court of Appeal hearing, expected to be held later this month. "Of course, we’re keeping abreast of the situation and our lawyer attended the last World Council meeting," he said at the Hungaroring yesterday. "I find it normal; we’re in Formula 1 and we should keep up to date on everything that’s happening. At present, I have to say that this affair has turned people’s attention from what’s important: namely, what’s going on out there on the track. This business is doing everybody in F1 harm. I’d like people to stop talking about it and concentrate a bit more on the sport."

Briatore, who always has an opinion on F1 matters, had become involved in the espionage case when he spoke to Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport at the end of last week to pass this thoughts on the rapidly unfolding affair. "When we started developing the car for 2007 we maybe underestimated the big technical impact there would have been with the coming of Bridgestone as sole tyre supplier in place of Michelin," he was reported as saying. "For me it was unquestionable that Ferrari, after many years with Bridgestone, would have had an advantage.

"But had I only known Ferrari's weight distribution, or how big their tank is, if I had a bit of those documents, then we surely wouldn't be in this situation today," the Italian team boss continued in Gazzetta dello Sport. "We would certainly have gained in performance. When everything is played within one tenth of a second, any information on your rivals, even if partial, is important.
 

"If he [Ron Dennis] knew there were those papers around, he should have informed Jean Todt about it immediately. And the federation. Dennis says he's immaculate, but it's hard to believe him. No, I don't believe in his good faith. In a team everyone knows everything. Especially if the dossier - let's call it that - in question is at that level."

Briatore is also keen to see the two main protagonists at the centre of the spying affair, former Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney and now-suspended McLaren-Mercedes Chief Design Mike Coughlan, being banned from the sport; it is a position that the FIA has already said it will consider. "All the team managers should say that in F1 there's no more room for them," Briatore commented, before adding that he was surprised that the English team was still employing Coughlan: "And it's an extremely serious thing that Coughlan hasn't yet been fired by McLaren. We must clean up by punishing certain people. So that what happened won't happen again. So that a mechanic, before passing on certain information to a rival, will think about it 27 times."

Briatore has since clarified his comments to the Italian press, which also reportedly included the suggestion that he would like to see McLaren banned over the incident. "No, I never said they should be excluded," he told the Autosport website on Friday. "I said if you call the World Council, you have evidence that there is something wrong. If you don't have evidence, why would you call the World Council? If you call the World Council it is because you have the proof that McLaren need punishing. If you call the World Council and you don't have evidence, I don't know why you'd call them."