Flav furious with FIA 'foul up'.

Renault MD Flavio Briatore insists that his team could, and should, have won the Japanese Grand Prix but, instead of blaming Giancarlo Fisichella for losing out to Kimi Raikkonen in the closing stages, lashed out at the stewards for an error that he believed lost Fernando Alonso a shot at victory.

The Spaniard had already carved his way past eight rivals on the opening lap and, after the safety car had returned to the pits, executed a move on Christian Klien that appeared to have given him seventh spot. However, realising that he could be penalised for using the chicane infield to complete the move Alonso moved aside and allowed the Austrian back through. Now free of any possible sanction, the new world champion simply blasted past the Red Bull car into turn one, regaining seventh spot with the minimum of time lost.

The stewards, however, either didn't spot Alonso allowing Klien through, or decided that the move didn't warrant enough generosity after he had cut the chicane, and ordered Renault to issue the instruction again. Although Alonso subsequently made short work of Klien for a third time, he had lost valuable ground, both to the leaders and to the chasing group.

"I think the key moment of this race was not at the end, but in the first stint, when Fernando was forced to give his position back to Klien," Briatore fumed after the event, "We didn't understand why, because he had already done it once, but the FIA asked him to do it again.

"That cost him nine seconds, and meant he was in much more traffic during the rest of the race. Without that delay, he could have been in front of Raikkonen after the second stop, and maybe we would have seen a different result."

Alonso was equally bemused, having been shaping up to pass Michael Schumacher's Ferrari when he got the call to drop back again.

"I didn't understand," he admitted, "I overtook [Klien] by missing the chicane, so I slowed down and he overtook me again. Then I overtook him again on the main straight after I had let him past. After three laps, I had seven seconds to him, but the team and the FIA told me to slow down to let him past again. I effectively stopped, waited seven seconds and let Klien go ahead. I was a bit surprised about that, but there was nothing to do."

Briatore attempted to take some consolation from an event that promised much but eventually left the regie disappointed.

"We must look at the positives," he insisted, "We have one race left, we are leading the constructors' championship again, and there is a new engine upgrade to come in China. There is everything still to play for there."