It seems that karma has finally caught up with Flavio Briatore. With Monday’s emergence of ‘witness X’ in the Renault Formula 1 case (who was reportedly “personally present at a meeting shortly after qualifying when Mr Symonds mentioned the possibility of a crash plan to Mr Briotore”), the ex-crew boss has been indefinitely banned from F1 while his partner in crime - ex-engineering chief Pat Symonds – has been banned for five years. 

Nelson Pique Jr – the driver that carried out the actual crash – apologised for the part he played but claimed: “I bitterly regret my actions to follow the order I was given,” so contradicting Symond’s earlier statement that it was he “who, when the idea was first suggested by Nelson Pique Jr, should have dismissed it immediately.”

Renault managed to escape Monday’s hearing with just a two year suspended sentence, primarily because “Flavio Briatore  considered he was morally responsible and resigned”, or so Patrick Pelata (Renault’s director general) told French radio station RTL. However, in truth who knows what the truth is, for as Johnny Herbert (who drove under Briatore at Benetton in the early nineties) pointed out last week: “Flavio is not one for his word.”