{"id":880708,"date":"2026-09-05T08:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880708\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T08:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:33:24","slug":"what-next-after-briatores-explosive-mclaren-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880708\/","title":{"rendered":"What next after Briatore\u2019s explosive McLaren rant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the months since the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix, the argument over Alpine<\/a> driver Pierre Gasly<\/a>\u2019s penalty for pitlane speeding has taken on the aspect of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, the infamously torturous probate case in the background of the Charles Dickens novel Bleak House. In the book, the proceedings last so long that the legal costs consume the value of the estate.<\/p>\n

Likewise with the Monaco question. Did anyone really care anymore by this point? Vanishing few apart from those with an agenda to gain points (at Alpine\u2019s expense) or make a point (at the expense of those responsible for the pitlane speed limit farrago).<\/p>\n

The long and the short of this case is that Gasly, one of several drivers handed penalties for speeding in the pitlane in Monaco, did not serve his two separate penalties during the race because the team felt they had been incorrectly applied. As a result, he gained track position and finished third on the road, but then was demoted to seventh when the two five-second penalties were added to his race time.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

On appeal Gasly was reinstated on the podium when Alpine appeared to have successfully built a case around the measurements for the pitlane timing loops being found to be incorrect. Friday\u2019s FIA International Court of Appeal hearing reversed that, on account of it being unfair to apply one set of measurements to all the other competitors but a different (later) one to the competitor appealing the result.<\/p>\n

At the time, Alpine released a statement acknowledging the finding, but expressing its disappointment. It\u2019s understood that nobody within the team was expecting what happened next: \u2018executive adviser\u2019 Flavio Briatore launching into a furious and often barely coherent rant in the Friday FIA press conference, accusing one of the four ICA judges of being biased towards McLaren<\/a> on account of previous connections with the business.<\/p>\n

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, also present, was palpably furious. For a few seconds the normally sedate proceedings threatened to descend into something akin to one of those 1990s TV \u2018chat\u2019 shows with screen captions such as “I Know You\u2019re Cheating \u2013 Stop Blaming The Dog!”\u00a0 and security has to intervene to prevent the guests tearing each other\u2019s hair out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is unfair is that the judge was linked with McLaren,\u201d continued Briatore. \u201cThis is unfair. The judge normally being completely independent and this judge, the name is Filippo Marchino.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilippo Marchino is a judge, he was very nasty during the hearing, was acting as a prosecutor. And after we found out what is the reason why so nasty, this guy. He is very linked with McLaren.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are the McLaren \u2018links\u2019?
\n \"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Stella was palpably furious in the press conference<\/p>\n

Photo by: Mark Sutton \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

While it is impossible to preside over whether\u00a0Marchino\u2019s conduct was \u201cnasty\u201d without access to a transcript of proceedings, it is fair to say that his links with McLaren appear to be tenuous. Marchino is an Italian-American lawyer and rally competitor who since 2018 has served as CEO of the One Drop Foundation, a charity founded by Cirque du Soleil impresario Guy Laliberte.<\/p>\n

Briatore says McLaren gave the charity \u201ctwo, three McLaren cars\u201d. It\u2019s understood that this is the case, but that the cars were gifts from the late Mansour Ojjeh, a key McLaren Group shareholder, to Laliberte for the purposes of raising money for the charity via auction. Ojjeh died in 2021.<\/p>\n

Briatore also spoke of a photograph in which Marchino spoke at a McLaren Special Operations event in Beverley Hills in 2018. This is available on Getty Images. But MSO is a division of McLaren Automotive, a separate entity from the racing team \u2013 so, as with the car gifts, the connection is somewhat tenuous.<\/p>\n

What happens next?<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of the press conference a curious game of pass-the-parcel ensued: FIA insiders suggested this was really a matter for McLaren and Alpine to sort out with one another; McLaren insiders said it was nothing to do with them; and the mood music from Alpine was that it had nothing to add to the statement it issued immediately after the ICA judgement was announced.<\/p>\n

In an official statement, the FIA made the procedure for choosing candidates clear: \u201cThe eligibility of candidates for membership of the international tribunal and international court of appeal (ICA) is checked by the eligibility assessment committee, in accordance with the FIA statutes,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FIA judicial and disciplinary rules provide that for each case before the ICA, a judging panel is constituted, comprising at least three judges. The members of the judging panel are appointed by the president of the ICA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The judges for Pierre Gasly’s case were selected six weeks before the hearing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Alastair Staley \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

It is understood that the judging panel was chosen six weeks before the hearing, at which point the parties to the case could have lodged objections to the appointees.<\/p>\n

The FIA may yet adjust its position on Briatore, given president Mohammed Ben Sulayem\u2019s history of being highly protective of volunteers and officials. His predecessor Max Mosley was wont to punish those he deemed in violation of article 151[C] of the international sporting code, a catch-all clause pertaining to bringing the sport into disrepute.<\/p>\n

Importantly, Marchino may also choose to act.<\/p>\n

Defamation is a much-misunderstood area of the law; there are still those who believe that appending the word \u201callegedly\u201d to a defamatory statement provides full immunity from potential claims. It does not.<\/p>\n

In most Western nations, libel is a matter of civil rather than criminal law, the latter having been abolished since it represented a tool for the state to clamp down on dissent. Civil laws vary from country to country but generally try to strike a balance between enabling free speech and protecting individuals or entities from financial or reputational damage.<\/p>\n

In the UK, for instance, once a magnet for so-called \u201clibel tourism\u201d, the 2013 Defamation Act enshrined a clear \u2018public interest\u2019 defence in certain circumstances, and requires litigants to establish that a claim has caused serious reputational or financial harm.<\/p>\n

One factor common to civil defamation laws is that when the bar of reputational and\/or financial harm has been cleared, and the case can proceed to court, the burden of proof falls on the person who has made the defamatory statement. It is not up to the accused to prove themselves innocent of the claims made against them.<\/p>\n

As such, Briatore may have bitten off more than he can chew.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the months since the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix, the argument over Alpine driver Pierre Gasly\u2019s penalty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[821,64,63,44232,817,813,816,44231,913,85,449961],"class_list":["post-880708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-alpine","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autodromo-nazionale-monza","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-italian-gp","tag-mclaren","tag-sports","tag-what-next-after-briatoreu2019s-explosive-mclaren-rant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}