On 5 January 2010, the Tribunal de Grande Instance overturned the ban and granted him €15,000 in compensation.[33] The tribunal declared in particular that "the decision of the World Council was presided over by the FIA president, who was well known to be in conflict with Briatore, with Mr Mosley having played a leading role in launching the inquiry and its investigation in violation of the principle of separation of the power of the bodies".[34] The FIA announced that it would appeal the decision issued by the French court, but the two parties reached an out-of-court settlement the following April.[35][36]

In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, Briatore said that he is sure that he will not return to Formula One, despite having his ban overturned.

Flavio Briatore and the FIA, that is not a good combination. After the flamboyant Italian was once banned from the sport by the motorsport federation (which has since been reversed), the relationship between the two parties is anything but pleasant.
A week after Briatore took a swipe at the FIA for its performance in Singapore, he is already angry about the next incident. Seven days earlier, there was the anger that the FIA had thought far too long about a possible penalty for Sergio Perez. This time there was anger over the penalty for Charles Leclerc at Suzuka. One reason for the outburst? According to Briatore, the FIA had imposed a penalty on him far too quickly, after barely three minutes of deliberation.

The 1988 Prost / Senna McLaren MP4/4 - Disassembling The Greatest F1 Car With The Men Who Made It

Jean-Pierre Jabouille, the two-time Grand Prix winner who claimed Renault’s first F1 victory, has died at the age of 80.

Frenchman Jabouille made 49 starts across an F1 career that began with Williams in 1974 and ended with Ligier in 1981 – via spells at Surtees, Tyrrell and the aforementioned Renault.

Two years after joining Renault, Jabouille scored a landmark home win for himself and the team at the 1979 French Grand Prix, held at Dijon, leading home Ferrari rival Gilles Villeneuve and team mate Rene Arnoux, who were involved in a remarkable and now legendary skirmish for the runner-up spot.

Jabouille and Renault secured another triumph together at the following year’s Austrian Grand Prix – the Paris-born racer also taking six pole positions and ending his F1 career with 21 points.

Alongside F1, Jabouille claimed the European F2 title in 1976 and collected four podium finishes at the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Speaking of Jabouille’s passing, Formula 1 CEO and President Stefano Domenicali said: “I am saddened by the news that Jean-Pierre Jabouille has passed away. He gave so much to motorsport and F1 and we cherish his memory and achievements. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.”

The current Alpine team – backed by Renault – released a statement saying they were “incredibly saddened” to hear of Jabouille’s passing, describing him as “a humble racing driver, brilliant engineer, and a pioneer of our sport”, along with being “a true racer”.

Their message continued: “He spearheaded Renault’s journey into F1 in 1977 with his resilient and dare to do attitude. He was Renault’s first Grand Prix winner in 1979, a landmark moment in Renault’s journey in Formula 1.

“His determination and dedication to succeed inspired many, and these values remain central to the current team in its now blue colours of Alpine.

“We are where we are today because of Jean-Pierre and his legacy lives on. We’d like to extend our most sincere condolences to his family and close friends.”

“I was the project leader composite/monocoque designer at the time,” he explains. “That was my sort of speciality in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I was also put in charge of the front suspension, which we decided would be pull-rod.

“After moving around various options, we came the idea of putting the spring dampers in vertically, behind the driver’s feet.

“It made great packaging sense, kept it low, and there was space to do it – but the problem was this now meant there wasn’t space for a conventional sort of rocker [connecting the strut, as with a standard pull-rod suspension].

“I had one of those of coffee discussions with Dave North, when he suggested using tracks instead of a rocker, similar to what was used when he was at Brabham. I thought, ‘That’s an interesting idea.’

“However, it was very much my responsibility to deliver the rising rates that Steve wanted, and design a completely new type of front anti-roll bar because the packaging meant it was [a] pretty weird [space] for a conventional one.”

Jeffreys has now turned his creative nous to painting incredibly detailed profiles of iconic F1 cars in addition to his engineering work – with many prints signed by legends of F1 such as James Hunt’s former team boss Lord Hesketh.

It’s fitting that the first car he turned to paint was the MP4/4 a car he he “knew a lot about dimensionally – so I was able to draw it pretty accurately!”

Back in 1987, Jeffreys was tasked by Nichols to use his artistic eye in creating technical drawings to style the bodywork areas not affected by aerodynamic restraints.

Nichols told the JayEmm on Cars YouTube channel that he agonised over the diameter of the front nosecone so as to maintain a McLaren “family resemblance”, but that the rest of the responsibility went to Jeffreys in making the car aesthetically pleasing....“Having said that, it was mainly Dave North who did the detail and design of it.”


“Obviously, the aerodynamics, the engineering and the science is the most important thing,” Jeffreys says.

“But there are some areas which the aerodynamicists say aren’t sensitive – it doesn’t make a difference. In which case, if you’re going to come up with a shape, you might as well make it look nice! That was our philosophy.

“Steven and I think along similar lines – literally, in some respects – in terms of what looks good and what doesn’t, the sense of proportion of things.



...
“The narrow nose came about because the drivers [in their seating position] went backwards in effect, relative to the front of the car.

“Steve was keen to have a sort of flowing shape, or two rather – the angle of the cam covers and the fuel tank, and the drivers shoulders, which sort of follow through in the body work at a sort pleasing sort of angle.

“Once that was drawn up, Colin Smith, a design draughtsman, would then meticulously create the bodywork, first producing a wooden buck – essentially a full-scale model – section by section.

“With a full-size car appearing before your eyes, you can see if it looks a bit weird or whatever – this is how we adjusted the nose.”

Completing the design was an old associate of Gordon Murray’s to help with the car’s unique packaging.

“Where Gordon did contribute was that he brought in Pete Weisman to work on the step gear that was required for gearbox, because the crankshaft was low,” says Jeffreys.







Getting it all to work together though, and in such a short period of time, wasn’t quite so simple though....

“I’d be at the factory till 10:45pm every night – because that’s just before McDonald’s closed!” laughs Nichols.

“Everybody was so good on every level. The manufacturing guys, the laminating, the race team, the huge amount of effort that went into the testing programme and the Japanese test team, they threw everything at it – it was phenomenal.

“It was such a blessing for all people to be donating their time, coming in on the weekend to get it done, doing it for free because they wanted to. The MP4/4 was, to me, the ultimate expression of teamwork.”

It certainly could be argued to be just that. 15 wins out of 16 races in the 1988 season, garnered during an epic title duel between Senna and Prost making it statistically the most successful F1 car of all time. Design creativity that, in 1988, couldn’t be beat..