Renault to sue McLaren?

Team boss Flavio Briatore, along with a number of other team members, were due in court in Monaco today, charged with illegal possession of intellectual property belonging to Ron Dennis' team, which currently runs British superstar Lewis Hamilton.

And Briatore, who is confident that the case will be thrown out, said that legal action against McLaren, who he claims defamed their team in a press release that stated they had been spied on, was a serious option.

"A lot of very bad things have been said about us by McLaren in the last few weeks, very damaging," Briatore told British newspaper The Daily Express.

"We will be cleared and once the verdict is announced we will consider legal action. Our reputation has been defamed."

McLaren claim their former technician Phil Mackereth took disks containing sensitive technical information with him when he switched to Renault and showed them to a number of other members of technical staff, and that Renault benefited from this.

McLaren were fined US$100 million [£50.2 million] and thrown out of the constructors' championship after being found guilty of possessing intellectual property belonging to Ferrari earlier this year.

The precedent set by the case would indicate that, if found guilty, Renault would face an identical punishment.

It is believed that, with no constructors' title to play for, Renault executives would be both unable to afford and unwilling to sanction the signing of jobless double world champion Fernando Alonso for 2008.