Renault Deny Sabotaging Fisichella

Fisichella has been beset by bad luck and technical problems for most of the season - and an early second pitstop and then a stall wrecked his hopes of a podium finish in the British Grand Prix.

The change of strategy has served to fuel suggestions that Renault are trying to hinder Fisichella's results so that he does not threaten Alonso, with the Spaniard locked in a title fight with McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen.

But Briatore has rubbished the rumours about the team hampering Fisichella on purpose and questioned why the team would do so and thereby compromise their Constructors' Championship prospects.

"These are voices that come from someone who hates me since we were children," said Briatore about the rumours. "I ask you: what would be my interest in damaging Giancarlo's races when our main target this year is to win the Constructors' Championship."

Briatore is no stranger to facing suggestions that he is hampering a driver - and only last season he had to defend accusations that he sabotaged Jarno Trulli's season while they discussed their future contract. In the end, Trulli parted company with the team before the end of the season.

"Saying that I did the same to Trulli makes no sense," added Briatore. "You can ask Jarno yourselves: it's not that he broke the contract with me, the contract just came to an end after 15 years.

"Jarno did a great career in Formula One for the kind of driver he is; he even won a Grand Prix. As for Fisichella, I believe he won the first race of the season. There are limits for what people can say, for this kind of things.

"For us the Constructors' Championship is more important than the Drivers' Championship. Fisichella is expected to do the maximum for the team and today he did a great race.

"We have to see whose fault it was today, because it's not always the team's fault. As it happened last week, it's not always the team's fault. But it was a great day for us anyway.

"It's beautiful to see that people always have distorted minds when they ask this kind of thing. It's perfectly clear we cannot sacrifice one driver to help the other."