Renault confident FIA will lose appeal

The FIA lodged the appeal after its own stewards found nothing illegal about Renault's mass damper system during scrutiny of one of the French squad's cars with the system fitted. The governing body had banned the mass dampers days earlier.

Renault did not use the system in Germany or in Hungary last weekend.

The International Court of Appeal will meet on August 22 to decide if the system is legal or not.

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds believes the FIA is likely to lose, meaning Renault would be allowed to refit the mass dampers.

"If the FIA wins the appeal - and I really do not believe the FIA can win the appeal on the grounds they have said - but if they do then we really have to start to relook at the definition of what a racing car is - its suspension, everything," said Symonds.

"If the FIA choose to interpret in the particular manner they are doing now, then there are many, many other parts on the car open to interpretation," he added.

"It's quite obvious that they (the FIA) never understood the system. Because you can't change your mind about something factual. If Flavio (Briatore)'s shirt's blue, it's blue. You can't have that as an opinion."

Symonds believes it strange that the FIA decided to ban the system ahead of the German Grand Prix after it was deemed legal in the previous race in France.

"It's a bit unfortunate that you guys don't get to see all the regulations," added Symonds. "They publish a set on their website but we have to work with many other things. Things called TDs, technical directives. These days they formulate more of the requirements than the regs themselves.

"TD20, which was issued between the French and German Grands Prix did say that the FIA had considered this device was legal but they'd recently changed their minds. That's a very strange state of affairs. It suggests they didn't understand what they were doing. I would argue they still don't understand now."

Renault team boss Flavio Briatore believes it was rivals McLaren who complained to the FIA about the system, despite McLaren chief Ron Dennis having denied it.

"We presume someone complained to the FIA, another team," said Briatore. "And we presume - this is my feeling, I have no proof - it was McLaren. After this moment everybody else was quite happy because if Renault have the best system surely then if everyone takes it off and ours was working better, it will help them.

"But really this is not the problem. For me the problem is much more simple. If McLaren or any other team had a problem, they should protest us. This is in the record. If you protest then there is an investigation by the steward. In Germany the steward said our car was legal."