The FIA have charged Renault with telling their own driver Nelson Piquet Jr to crash so the safety car would come out, helping their other driver Fernando Alonso.
Piquet smashed into a wall on lap 14 of F1's Singapore Grand Prix last September, forcing the safety car onto the track after which Alonso took the lead and went on to win.
But Renault's multi-millionaire boss Briatore insisted the safety car only came out after Barrichello conked out in his Honda on the next lap.
TV footage shows the safety car was out before Jenson Button's team-mate stopped.
Briatore - co-owner of football club QPR - blamed Barrichello in the immediate aftermath of the incident, which happened in F1's first floodlit night race.
The Italian tycoon was quizzed on Speed TV after Alonso's surprise victory. The interviewer said: "Even Nelson Piquet chipped in. If not for his safety car, Fernando wouldn't have been there."
But Briatore, who had admitted beforehand his team needed a miracle to win, replied: "We don't know. No, because it was Barrichello. The safety car was out for Barrichello.
"The miracle was done by Fernando Alonso and the team because everybody was working very hard for this result and we are very happy."
Renault have been summoned before an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris on September 21 and face being booted out of the sport.
Barrichello was just ahead of Piquet when his fellow Brazilian smashed into the wall.
But the race video clearly shows Barrichello was not involved in the incident and was not a factor in the safety car being deployed.
Piquet - sacked by Renault last month for poor results - even admitted that the team wanted a safety car out because Alonso had been short-fuelled.
He said: "The accident was my mistake. We tried two extreme strategies with Fernando quite short and me quite long in the hope of getting a safety car."
Piquet has been ordered by lawyers not to say anything before the Paris hearing when his and Renault's fate will be decided.
But the 24-year-old, unlikely to get another drive in F1, admitted to "strange situations" that season and blasted Briatore as his "executioner".
Piquet, who was beaten to the GP2 title by Britain's current F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton in 2006, said: "The conditions I have had to deal with during the last two years have been very strange to say the least.
"There are incidents that I can hardly believe occurred myself. After the opening part of the season, some strange situations began to happen."
Briatore, double world champ Alonso and Renault's technical chief Pat Symonds were all interviewed by FIA officials at last weekend's Belgian GP.
Investigators have also been analysing the telemetry readings from Piquet's car to see if he took the corner on lap 14 differently to previous times.
And they have checked the pit-to-car radio conversations for signs of any coded calls to Piquet. The Sao Paulo-born driver is understood to have been asking which lap he was on in the the run-up to the crash - despite it being so early in the race.
The sport's governing body have also called in Quest, the private intelligence agency, to look into the incident, which could lead to criminal charges and multi-million pound lawsuits.
If Renault are found guilty of ordering Piquet to crash they could be liable to claims by race fans, marshals or fellow drivers for putting their lives at risk.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who co-owns QPR with long-time friend Briatore, said: "The WMSC have been called to find out what's gone on. It does not mean Renault are guilty.
"Flavio is insisting that he knows nothing about it.
"But it is not good for the sport.
"People seem to be spending money betting on F1 which is good, but they will not want to do that if they think something is wrong with the result."
By Ian Gordon
Source
"Anything goes wrong and everybody's starting to point fingers. It's really amazing, isn't it? Very typical."
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