Hamburg - Renault faces a weekend of uncertainty following the departure of Flavio Briatore in the wake of a race-fixing affair which has rocked Formula One motor-racing. With the team in disarray following the exit of its principal and engineering director, its immediate aim will be to survive a hearing of the World Motor Sport Council of governing body FIA.
The French team faces sanctions at the hearing in Paris on Monday which could include expulsion from the championships and possibly spell its exit from the sport.
Briatore has said he agreed to leave the Renault team to save its future in a sport which has been embroiled in a series of controversies and scandals in recent years
"I was just trying to save the team. It's my duty. That's the reason I have finished," he was quoted as saying by Britain's Mirror newspaper.
Briatore and the Renault team's director of engineering, Pat Symonds, both left Wednesday, with the team saying it "will not dispute" the race-fixing charges.
The decision is being seen by many media commentators as an attempt to stave off expulsion when Renault answers to charges in the "crashgate" scandal.
"The best guess is that the company has agreed to a deal that will limit its punishment when the FIA9s World Motor Sport Council meets in the French capital on Monday," Britain Times newspaper wrote.
"(Bernie) Ecclestone (Formula One's commercial rights holder) has been keen to ensure that Renault, as a company, is not thrown out of the sport and this now looks unlikely to happen."
Ecclestone himself was quoted by the Mirror as saying that Formula One, whose credibility was already damaged by scandals such as the McLaren "spygate" affair, would recover from the latest controversy.
"It has recovered from so many things when people have said it was finished and it will recover from this," Ecclestone said.
"It was supposed to be finished when Ayrton Senna died. It was supposed to be finished when Michael Schumacher retired.
"It has been finished so many times that it's difficult to know when it really will stop but I don't think it will be now.
"People say it's been a torrid year but it always is in F1. There's always something going on. It's never peaceful."
Ecclestone said it was "a pity" that his friend Briatore had ended his Formula 1 career in this way.
"You can't defend him at all. What he did was completely unnecessary. It's a pity that it's happened," he said.
Briatore, 59, has denied any wrongdoing in the fixing affair in which Renault is alleged to have conspired to cause a deliberate crash by Nelson Piquet Jr at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
The crash, it is claimed, was designed to gain an advantage for team-mate Fernando Alonso, who won the race.
Several Spanish and Italian media see Briatore and Symonds as both scapegoats and victims in an alleged act of revenge from FIA president Max Mosley, who they say was no friend of Briatore's.
"An account is again being settled here," Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport said.
According to the Times, FIA could impose a heavy fine, suspension from Grand Prix races or the docking of points from this or next year's championship.
However it said any fine "is unlikely to be anywhere near the 100 million dollars record imposed on McLaren Mercedes for cheating through the use of stolen Ferrari technical data in 2007."
Media reports suggested that Briatore and Symonds could still be at risk of litigation from rival teams for loss of earnings or from authorities in Singapore as a result of the potential danger caused by the crash to drivers, spectators and trackside employees.
Renault itself may feel it has a case for damage to the company's name and image, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph said.
