And to sustain that statement, Mosley argued that the French manufacturer was not in any way aware of what was going on in their F1 garage at the time. Not only that, but the 69-year old Brit insisted that the majority of the Enstone based engineers and mechanics were unaware of the race-fixing plan set up by Briatore, Symonds and Piquet and, as a result, did not deserve such a harsh penalty.
Therefore, the WMSC members focused on handing the most drastic penalties to the ones actually involved in the crash-gate, rather than the ones who had no clue of what was going on but were dragged into this whole mess by default.
“I think it's the right decision. I think the blame has been placed where the blame should be placed. The penalty that we've imposed is the harshest one we can impose, which is disqualification, complete exclusion from the sport (Flavio Briatore),” said Mosley after the verdict was announced.
“However, because Renault have demonstrated that they had absolutely no moral responsibility for what took place - even the Renault F1 team didn't have, still less does the company have any responsibility at all - it would be wrong in the circumstances to impose an immediate penalty,” added the FIA president.
In addition, he showed his regret over what happened to Briatore, the very man with whom he had lots of arguments in the past.
“He's been in motorsport for more than 20 years at the top level. It's sad to see a career end like that, but what else could we do?” added Mosley.
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