FIA president Max Mosley has denied the 'crash-gate' investigation into Renault is part of a conspiracy to discredit the boss of the Enstone-based Renault F1 team Flavio Briatore.

At a time when the FIA were at loggerheads with the Formula One Teams' Association over the future of the Sport earlier this summer, Mosley described Briatore as being "associated" with "loonies", meaning the teams who were considering breaking away.

Mosley is adamant the FIA are merely following a process, and there is no agenda against Briatore, and said: "It is fundamentally implausible. Number one, we get a report from a driver. We have to investigate. If they (Renault) are innocent, they will have a complete answer."

Mosley ends his 16-year reign in late October, and Renault face an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on September 21 to answer charges of potential race-fixing.

Their former driver Nelson Piquet jnr has alleged that he deliberately crashed his car in last year's Singapore Grand Prix, to the advantage of team-mate Fernando Alonso.

Mosley added: "There is no point in us pursuing them if we thought they had done nothing. If it was some sort of conspiracy it would be demonstrated and we would look stupid.

"The only reason we've done it is because things have been put on the table.

"Looking at it from the other side, if we said we were ignoring it the whole world would turn around and say Formula One is not a sport, it's a business.

"They would also say because there is a big car company involved we are not going to do anything, or because Bernie (Ecclestone) is friends with Flavio and they've a football club (QPR), we are not going to do anything.

"The world would see us as corrupt."