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F1: "Teams not asked about scoring change", says Flavio Briatore

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Khatir Soltani
From GMM

In a continuing word exchange between the two sides in Formula 1's off-track war, Renault team boss Flavio Briatore has denied that the teams told Bernie Ecclestone they approved of the winner-takes-all scoring system for 2009.

Explaining the embarrassing about-face over the system's late introduction, FIA president Max Mosley explained that Ecclestone "told me that he talked to all the teams and everybody was happy".

Briatore, a leading light of the F1 teams' association FOTA, reacted: "It's not true that the teams had been informed, and with Ecclestone we talked about medals, but we never talked about the criteria approved by the World Council."

The Italian said the episode, with the FIA forced to back down and revert to the existing points system this year, proves the strength of the teams if they stay united.

"What has happened demonstrates that if the teams are together, their voice can count," Briatore is quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph.
photo:Renault
Khatir Soltani
Khatir Soltani
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