Meanwhile, Flavio Briatore, who quit as the team’s principal last week, was banned indefinitely from being involved in any motor sport activities.

"It's sad because he's been in motor sport for twenty years, more actually, at the top level, and it's sad to see a career end like that but what could we do?" said FIA president Max Mosley.

As well as avoiding expulsion from the sport, Renault also avoided a heavy fine, although they will pay for the investigation.

But Max Mosley believes Renault's suspended sentence was the correct decision.

"The penalty that we've imposed is the harshest one we can impose, which is disqualification. That means complete exclusion from the sport. However, because Renault have demonstrated that they had absolutely no moral responsibility for what took place – that's to say Renault F1 even, the team, didn't have [responsibility], still less of course does the company [Renault] have any responsibility at all – it would be wrong in the circumstances to impose an immediate penalty, so it's a suspended penalty," he said.