F1's 'Crashgate' scandal finally appears to be over after the FIA and Flavio Briatore reached an out-of-court settlement.
Deal means Briatore will remain suspended from F1 until 2013
Formula One's so-called 'Crashgate' scandal finally appears over after the FIA and former Renault team principal Flavio Briatore reached an out-of-court settlement.
The deal agreed between world motorsport's governing body, Briatore and Renault's former director of engineering Pat Symonds means that both will remain suspended from F1 until January 1, 2013.
In January, Briatore and Symonds successfully overturned the life and five-year bans they respectively received last September after the FIA found them guilty of conspiring to cause a deliberate crash involving driver Nelson Piquet Jr. in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
The FIA subsequently announced that it would in turn launch an appeal, with president Jean Todt vowing last month that the actions of Briatore and Symonds "could not be without consequences".
However, negotiations between lawyers representing both parties have resulted in a resolution which also brought an admission of responsibility from both men.
An FIA statement released on Monday said: "After discussions between their lawyers and those of the FIA, Mr Flavio Briatore and Mr Pat Symonds have each made a settlement offer to the FIA president with a view to putting an immediate end to the legal proceedings.
Apologies
"Each of them recognising his share of responsibility for the deliberate crash involving the driver Nelson Piquet Junior at the 2008 Grand Prix of Singapore, as team principal of Renault F1 where Mr Flavio Briatore is concerned, they have expressed their regrets and presented their apologies to the FIA.
"They have undertaken to abstain from having any operational role in Formula One until 31 December 2012, as well as in all the other competitions registered on the FIA calendars until the end of the 2011 sporting season.
"They have also abandoned all publicity and financial measures resulting from the judgment of January 5, 2010, as well as any further action against the FIA on the subject of this affair.
"In return, they have asked the FIA to abandon the ongoing appeal procedure...as well as to waive the right to bring any new proceedings against them on the subject of this affair.
"The FIA president has considered that it is in the best interests of the FIA not to allow the perpetuation of these legal disputes...and thus to accept this settlement solution, thereby putting an end to this affair."
The FIA will, however, continue to undertake a structural reform of its disciplinary procedures believing there was "a poor understanding" of their workings by the French court which overturned the bans.
The Tribunal de Grande Instance had ruled the bans were "irregular" given that they were not catered for in the FIA's statutes.