Briatore gets banned, Renault given suspended sentence and the fallout begins!

I have to be truthful on two things on which I hope you accept before reading this;
1. I haven't read beyond the second post.
2. It's Friday and I have spent the last three hours trying to repair a dishwasher whilst happily quaffing beer, (many).

To me this tallys up. Piquet threw the race in order for Alonso to win.

I'm not a big fan of Alonso or Renault (the team).
It seams to pay for a team to win and, why wouldn't a team throw it without a concourse agreement or a credible governing body.

There is no reason why this would appear inplausable due to the circumstances?

Alonso would never accept a second driver competing with him.

Flav can't resist a 'win' regardless of the circumstances.

Dan.
 


Funny interview with Flav in June

Would be a good way to get rid of him, just wonder how it relates with Bernie and the Football club they bought together. If he's a threat or just unwanted it doesn't matter I suppose.
 
Bernie has no say in this, it doesn't affect him and I don't think he's too bothered as long as there is still F1 to go to all his circuits.
 
tibiquera
I don't know the specifics in the case, but didn't Renault voluntarily told they had McLaren's specifics and gave it back as soon as they got it from someone, while McLaren kept it as a secret? At least that's the impression I got.
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Yup, right after the season was over, and of course, they accidentally loaded it onto their computer servers. Of course, we discussed this all before... that season (and the season right after) was frustrating in the inconsistency of the application of FIA rules from race to race... and even within the same race. Nothing much has changed.

Very disappointing for the sport that there's no denial that the discussion took place... and that this fight has degenerated into a name-calling match.

I don't see Renault continuing support for the race team after this... or even ING... which means serious repercussions for Briatore's team next season.
 
Okay, wacky theory time:

1) Piquet is afraid he'll lose his race seat for 2009 and will do anything to keep it.
2) He overhears or somehow finds out that Alonso's best shot at victory is if a safety car is deployed on lap thirteen or fourteen.
3) He approaches Briatore and Symonds and floats the idea of causing the safety car in the hopes that his contract will be renewed.
4) Briatore and Symonds shoot him down.
5) Piquet goes ahead and crashes on lap fourteen anyway.
6) Renault have no choice but to go along with the deception; they can't rightly tell Alonso to let Rosberg through in the dying laps because Alonso knows nothing of it.
7) Piquet demands a contract renewal after the race and threatens to go to the police and/or the FIA claiming the race was fixed.
8) Renault offer a contract, but make sure to include a performance clause in it so that if Piquet is dropped, they'll be in the clear on paper.
9) Piquet is dropped in favour of Grosjean after Hungary after he fails to perform. He retreats to whatever foxhole he came from.
10) He leaks the information about the race-fixing, using his poor standing with Briatore to paint himself as the victim.
11) He provides a false statement to the FIA, or at least one that he has convined himself to be true (Piquet's attitude suggested he thought his poor performacnes were never his fault).
12) The FIA offers Piquet immunity at the WMSC hearing in exchange for his testimony.
13) Renault launch legal action against the Piquet family, claiming they were or are currently being blackmailed.
14) The case goes to the WMSC hearing, where Piquet attempts to destroy Renault altogether.
15) The WMSC have no choice but to find Renault guilty, given that Piquet's telemetry shows the crash was intentional and that they only have Piquet's word against Renault's word on the subject of the conversation between Piquet, Briatore and Symonds.
16) Alternatively, the charges against Renault are dropped due to insufficient or circumstantial evidence (a lot seems to hinge on the pre-race meeting). Piquet doesn't get his revenge, but he does get away with race-fixing.
 
interludes
2) He overhears or somehow finds out that Alonso's best shot at victory is if a safety car is deployed on lap thirteen or fourteen.
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That there's enough crazy. Renault has to come up with a VERY good reason as to why they thought pitting on 12 laps was a good idea, because the only other reason would be if it was in concert with the intentional crash....

Either way they're screwed because they can't just let a driver dictate what the team does, even if it's beneficial to them. If they saw that Piquet crashed on purpose, they couldn't just "go along", they had to bench him.
 
Most recent news in this story are: 1) Briatore will step down and Renault have already contacted Alain Prost to take his job; 2) Piquet Sr. says Alonso was aware of the race-fix.

About 1, I think it's a good decision from Renault, enough said.

About 2, I guess Piquet Sr. should keep his mouth shut unless he can provide some evidence of what he is saying.

However, I have also wondered how could Alonso be (before the race) convinced that a low fuel strategy could work his way in normal race conditions, considering he just managed 15th on the grid (therefore, he was out of quali at the end of Q2)
 
Hun200kmh
Most recent news in this story are: 1) Briatore will step down and Renault have already contacted Alain Prost to take his job; 2) Piquet Sr. says Alonso was aware of the race-fix.

About 1, I think it's a good decision from Renault, enough said.

About 2, I guess Piquet Sr. should keep his mouth shut unless he can provide some evidence of what he is saying.

However, I have also wondered how could Alonso be (before the race) convinced that a low fuel strategy could work his way in normal race conditions, considering he just managed 15th on the grid (therefore, he was out of quali at the end of Q2)
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About 2, I don't remember if Alonso was performing superhuman feats of driving in the Renault before Singapore, so maybe he was just resigned to gamble on a risky strategy since the car was so slow up until this point and he had nothing to lose. His ability to get so much out of that car really increased my respect for him, but if he knew, its gone forever.
 
I think it's probable that he didn't know. He drove so brilliantly in that race that I don't think his mind was on anything else but the race he was doing.

EDIT: quoting Maz (Synwraith) in his blog ( http://f1column.blogspot.com ) in his last year review of the Singapore GP:

While Alonso’s victory owed much to the safety car, it should be remembered that he was fastest in practice 2 and 3 and set the third fastest lap of the race behind only Massa and Raikkonen. Ferrari saw to Massa’s chances, and he later spun himself also, plus Raikkonen crashed out. Alonso was fast, made no errors and executed an overtaking move on Trulli equally as impressive as the one Hamilton pulled on Coulthard (a direct result of Alonso’s pit exit). The difference in performance of Renault over Toyota is much smaller than the difference between a McLaren’s performance and that of a Red Bull, so that should reduce the shine taken off Alonso’s move due to Trulli’s fuel load.
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Might aswell take Alonso down if your career is in the pan already. This is why Martin Brundle is one of the most well respected journo's in F1:

Article Here
gpupdate.net
"I'm disappointed in Piquet father and son," he continued. "Like many of us in the paddock, they have benefited enormously from being in the privileged inner sanctum of F1 and the boy's career opportunities and funding existed only because of F1.

"So, crashing deliberately in the first place, as he claims, and then lobbing this nuclear bomb into the paddock is not impressive to say the least; they've cut off their noses to spite their face because surely Nelson Piquet Jr is unemployable in F1 now. Which team and sponsor wants to be associated with all this? Anger has got the better of them here. F1, though, will survive it and move on."
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Amen. 👍
 
Do Renault even have a new main sponsor for 2010 who can give the menough money to make the entire season? They've blown their career as an F1 team. Piquet's story is believable enough, and Flavio has made things even worse. Piquet's and Renaults time in F1 is over. And hopefully Eddie Jordan, or Aguri Suzuki, or Prodrive, or Prost GP might return :lol:
 
Hun200kmh
Most recent news in this story are: 1) Briatore will step down and Renault have already contacted Alain Prost to take his job; 2) Piquet Sr. says Alonso was aware of the race-fix.

About 1, I think it's a good decision from Renault, enough said.

About 2, I guess Piquet Sr. should keep his mouth shut unless he can provide some evidence of what he is saying.

However, I have also wondered how could Alonso be (before the race) convinced that a low fuel strategy could work his way in normal race conditions, considering he just managed 15th on the grid (therefore, he was out of quali at the end of Q2)
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But if Alonso knew the plan is a fact and Piquet Jr. never stated that on his letter to the FIA. Which means there could be A LOT more to this.

But yeah, +1 about Piquet Sr. He really should keep quiet unless he has proof. Another thing, if Alonso knew about it, why wasn't he there for that "meeting" that occurred Sunday morning?:ill:

How dare they try to take Alonso down with them. He is better than almost everyone on the grid in terms of raw talent. I wouldn't think Alonso would stoop down to that level and cheat. Just doesn't sound like him. Piquet Jr. on the other hand, is desperate and needs to do something drastic to keep his job at Renault.


I don't think Renault is going anywhere after this year. They'll be here but with a massive fine to pay and Prost as team principal. :yuck:
 
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L_Hamilton
Which means there could be A LOT more to this.
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I don't know ... The Piquets! (that's what I'm calling them from now on) have already implicated two senior Renault personnel: Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. Now they seem to have fixed on Alonso as well. Call my a cynic, but that says to me that they're trying to take as many people down with them as possible. And I think they're donig it purely out of spite.

I've said before that I'd be interested to see what kind of trajectory Piquet's career would take if he had signed on with some other team. Toro Rosso, for instance, or maybe Force India. I think he'd do marginally better, but I don't think we'd have seen a total turnaround in his results.

I don't think he ever quite grasped the concept that Formula One is different to the lower categories by a whole order of magnitude. There have been plenty of drivers who have had success in series like GP2, but have failed to make the grade. Giorgio Pantano is one; he might have won last year's GP2 series crown, but he was completely snubbed by the Formula One teams given his achievements last time he had a race seat. Tonio Liuzzi is another one; he was quick and he was successful right up until the moment he stepped into the sport's highest echelon.

I think Piquet's head was always in the clouds. He came in expecting results on the back of his GP2 successes, but failed to recognise that he was now the small fish in a big pond. There was always an excuse for his shortcomings; while he had the odd mechanical failure, he'd accuse the team of not supporting him when he made errors, or he'd say the conditions were too difficult. He always pushed the blame, so it does't surprise me that when he was finally dropped, he felt hard done-by.
 
That's what I thought at fist when I saw Sutil. Teammate to Hamilton and finishing on podiums with him, you'd think he would do a bang up job in F1. But he didn't until he got into a competitive car. And now we see that he actually has what it takes and I would not mind seeing him as teammates with Hamilton again. I'd rekon Mclaren would be quite a formidable foe if Mclaren gets their cars together and start being the Mclaren of 2008.

Hamilton and Sutil for 2010. :lol:
 
A major, major, crash and burn... and they're trying to bring everyone else down with them?

Interesting how the story changes as they go deeper into this... which makes the Piquet's side less and less believable as time goes on...
 
niky
which makes the Piquet's side less and less believable as time goes on...
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The problem is that he's been granted immunity from the WMSC hearing.

However, I suspect it my be conditonal. If they find that Renault is guilt-free and/or that Piquet made a false statement with the intention of ruining Renault's reputation, they'll probably be able to charge him. He'd probably be up for police charges as well.
 
interludes
The problem is that he's been granted immunity from the WMSC hearing.

However, I suspect it my be conditional. If they find that Renault is guilt-free and/or that Piquet made a false statement with the intention of ruining Renault's reputation, they'll probably be able to charge him. He'd probably be up for police charges as well.
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That's a possibility... if his story keeps changing, then it's likely they'll be picking it apart with more scrutiny.

The wild thing is... it's an admission of guilt far after the fact... and made in revenge for being sacked... two items that might raise red flags as to the truth of the claims... though the accident being intentional... given how it occured... is an easy enough claim to believe... or the truth of whether the idea started with Renault.

But with lover-boy resigning over this in advance of the hearings... well... I don't know if he's doing it because it's the honorable thing to do, or as an admission of possible guilt, to deflect the heat away from the organization...

Certainly a big black eye for F1... right after the McLaren scandal earlier this year.

Alonso to Red Bull? :lol:
 
niky
That's a possibility... if his story keeps changing, then it's likely they'll be picking it apart with more scrutiny.
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It's not so much being changed as it is being added to. And Big Nelson's comments about Alonso are not in the vein of "Alonso knew all along", but take more of a "I can't see how Alonso couldn't have known about this" approach. They're appearing to distinguish between fact and opinion, but in reality they're wording what they consider to be fact as an opinion (kind of the opposite of stating opinion as fact) to implicate him.

But I also think that a lot of people are inherently against The Piquets! simply because we think it's Little Nelson acting out of spite. It may well be that he's seeking petty revenge because he was justifiably dropped, but that doesn't mean he can't be right. And if he is right, well, I honestly think Formula One would be better off without Briatore. If they're guilty, I think Renault should be allowed to stay in, with new people in the positions of power. Let them continue racing, if only to clear the air.
 
Oh.

Well... we'll see. This is going to be a very interesting hearing.

F1 without loverboy? Terrible idea! That's like F1 without Bernie! Oh... wait...
 
interludes
I've said before that I'd be interested to see what kind of trajectory Piquet's career would take if he had signed on with some other team. Toro Rosso, for instance, or maybe Force India. I think he'd do marginally better, but I don't think we'd have seen a total turnaround in his results.
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He would have done better at a different team, no doubt about that. Just look at the careers that this team has tried to ruin before. Herbert, Verstappen, Trulli, Fisichella, Button, Wurz...the list goes on.
But, the crucial difference between these drivers and Piquet is that they did something about it. Even though he didn't have much support from Flavio, there was nothing stopping him from improving his consistencey and keeping up a bit more with Alonso. He did do this a couple of times but overall he didn't do enough himself. With the afforementioned drivers, they all kept their head and proved to other teams that they did have something more and they all managed to find jobs at other teams afterwards. Of course, it doesn't help now that the Piquets are doing this (as Brundle said).

But I don't think Toro Rosso would have been much better. They seem awful driver managers, especially now we can see what Liuzzi can really do.
 
The plot thickens: Pat Symonds has been offered immunty, but when questioned at the Belgian Grand Prix, he didn't say anything. It's pretty obvious from the transcript that he knows more than he's telling, but the question is why. It's easy to say that the FIA is going after Briatore, but Mosley has said he has had enough of the politicking.

Personally, I think the WMSC no longer trusts The Piquets!. Their story changes with each re-telling: firstly, there was a plan to crash the car at a particular time. Then they decided where to do it because of the lack of cranes and safety access. Now Big Nelson has come out and said that he thinks Alonso had to be in on its from the beginning, and Brazilian newspapers are reporting that Little Nelson told Bernie that he was going to do absolutely everything to bring Briatore down. If he's using the WMSC to do that, I don't think they'll take to kindly to being used. Especially if he gave a false statement.
 
I read that Renault might not give Briatore the option of quitting.

According to TheF1.com (in Spanish), the French automaker has offered to replace the current team head (Flavio Briatore) from his position and put him at the disposal of the FIA because of the Singapore 2008 case.

According to the Spanish newspaper AS, Briatore's replacement would be Frederic Vasseur, current chief of the ART team and business partner of Nicolas Todt.


Sorry for the bad English, but I'm translating directly and I've been in the office for 13 hours.
 
wow ... I just read the transcript of Pat Symonds (not) answering the FIA official ... as published on autosport. There's no way out of this, I guess.

And the FIA (Mosley) is clearly out (with the sole purpose) to get Flavio, if even Symonds is also offered immunity ?!
 

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