Following his (understandable) outburst at the weekend, and subsequent volte face, which in turn followed a warning of punishment by the FIA, Renault boss Flavio Briatore continues to attempt to assert his (new found) belief in the sport's governing body.

Talking to Reuters the Italian said: "We have full confidence in everything, we never believed that they were manipulating anything against Renault. I am sure of the integrity of the stewards, of this I am 100 percent sure."

As a thousand F1 fans rush to Youtube to see Briatore, having heard that his nose, like fellow-Italian, Pinocchio, is now 'this big', the Renault boss added: "What we need to do in the future is identify really what is the spirit of the rules.

"The spirit in qualifying was that if someone intentionally stops you doing your lap time, they should be punished. This was the intention, or we should put it this way.

"The stewards have Ferrari's telemetry," he continued, "and maybe in that there is some proof that Fernando upset Massa. But for sure Fernando did not want to disturb Massa's lap.

"For us, Massa on pole position is better than Schumacher on pole," he added.

Having previously issued a statement confirming that comments made comparing the stewards' decision to the recent Italian football scandal were meant as a joke, Briatore attempted to calm the situation in the wake of comments made by his driver, who suggested that the Monza grid penalty was part of a 'campaign'.

"We accept the position of the stewards," said Briatore, I accept their decisions all the time. Fernando is 25 years old, he was very emotional about that and he feels it. But we never want to interfere with the decisions of the stewards. The stewards have more elements than me to judge the situation.

"During the race sometimes you are a little bit too emotional," added the Italian, "that's why I still love this business, because it gives emotion. Sometimes its good emotion and sometimes it's bad."