In documents published on the International Automobile Federation (FIA) website (www.fia.com), the world body said a fourth team member had also known about a plot for Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr to crash deliberately at the race to help Spanish team-mate Fernando Alonso win.
The conspiracy had been thought to be limited to Piquet, Briatore and Pat Symonds with the FIA declaring on Monday that double world champion Alonso had not been in the know.
However the FIA said a “whistleblower”, revealed by Renault shortly before the FIA's world motor sport council met and identified only to FIA president Max Mosley and certain legal advisers, had also been aware of the plan and had opposed it.
The FIA said Witness X had been “personally present at a meeting shortly after qualifying on Saturday 27 September 2008 when Mr Symonds had mentioned the possibility of a crash plan to Mr Briatore.”
"The FIA's advisers were confident Witness X himself played no active role in the conspiracy and that, indeed, he had objected to it and sought to distance himself from it,” added the report. The governing body also said there was no evidence anyone else in the team had knowledge of what it called a “secret conspiracy” apart from the four individuals.