By Simon Wright (Feature piece)
AS FORMULA One returns to Singapore for its fourth night race, I thought it would be time to comment on one of F1’s deepest scandals, when cheating went to a new, ultimate low. Years before, some had seeked technical clarifications to eliminate those trying to bend the rules. There was the Brabham ‘fan’ car of 1978, which was banned after one race. Benetton’s alleged illegal traction control device used during the 1994 season, but never totally proven and McLaren’s extra brake pedal at the start of the 1998 season, declared illegal after they whitewashed the opposition in that year’s season opener. However, no-one had stooped so low to attempt at fixing a Grand Prix result. In Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds and Nelson Piquet Jnr, Formula One was about to go down a very unsavoury path.
BUILD-UP TO THE INCIDENT
It is the autumn of 2008 and Renault has underperformed for a second successive F1 season. The team may have double world champion Fernando Alonso back on their driving roster, but they are a long way behind Ferrari, McLaren and BMW Sauber in the constructors championship and struggling to hold off Toyota for fourth spot; a poor reward for the team that conquered the sport in Alonso’s previous successful spell with the team two years earlier. Alongside the Spaniard is Brazilian rookie, Nelson Piquet Jnr. Son of the three-time world champion in the 1980s, he struggles throughout his debut season, outqualified by Alonso in every Grand Prix and only collecting sporadic point’s finishes. Although he picked up a fortunate second place thanks to a well-timed pitstop at the German Grand Prix, Piquet’s drive is under severe threat. Alonso looks frustrated at the car’s lack of ability for the best in the business to test the likes of Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton, both in superior machinery and fighting for the title, but nowhere near Alonso’s standing as a racing driver. As Formula One arrives for its first ever night race; the Singapore Grand Prix, noises from the paddock suggest that Renault are considering their long-term future in Grand Prix racing. With a crippling recession affecting America and Europe directly on the horizon, it seemed logical to walkaway from a business that was seeing results not being delivered.
Alonso is mighty around street circuits and looks quick in Singapore all weekend. In fact, his strong practice times suggest he has a great chance of qualifying in the top three for only the third time this season, on a genuine fuel load. However, a fuel line works loose and his car coasts to a halt in the opening moments of the second qualifying session. The reaction of the Spaniard when he climbs out of his broken down car speaks volumes. A great opportunity has just gone and rather than take on Massa, Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen for the race win, Alonso is doomed in 15th and set for a long race behind the likes of Sebastian Bourdais’s Toro Rosso and Jenson Button’s Honda. With Piquet being eliminated in Q1 and starting one position behind Alonso, Renault’s chances of any success in Singapore are looking bleak come Saturday evening.
THE INCIDENT
The race begins and Alonso has been placed on a light fuel load by Renault’s director of engineering, Pat Symonds. Symonds believes that a standard one-stop will get Fernando nowhere on raceday and going aggressive on the strategy might put him in contention for some solid points. Although he moves up to 12th on the opening lap, Alonso gets stuck behind the ridiculously slow Toyota of Jarno Trulli, who is on a heavy fuel load and lapping five seconds slower than the race leaders. Piquet made a dreadful start and runs 18th, gaining a place when Bourdais has an early spin down an escape road. On lap 12, Alonso comes in for a scheduled pitstop, relegating him to the back of the field. All hopes seem to be lost until two laps later.
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| COWARDLY: This crash sparked a chain of ugly events for Renault |
At first, it seems like just a normal racing incident, just another crash for Nelson Piquet and another blemish on his dismal first season in the sport. On lap 14, he gets out of shape at turn 17 and hit the barrier on the outside. As I’m watching the race live on ITV, even I think it looked a rather elementary mistake to make. However, I quickly dismiss it as a mistake because the driver involved had made several driving errors which had seen him chalk DNF’s up. The car looks a mess, but the impact with the wall is fairly light. The Brazilian is thankfully unhurt, but his car needs a crane to be removed, so the Safety Car is dispatched. Both Red Bull’s and Rubens Barrichello’s Honda have pitted in time, but lost track position to Alonso. With the pitlane closed until the pack forms up, the frontrunners will face a similar consequence. Once Trulli and Nico Rosberg pit, Alonso moves into the lead and dominates proceedings from there. He beats Rosberg and Hamilton to the chequered flag to score an unlikely win from 15th on the grid. Once out in front, he drove superbly like a champion and after the year he has had, he deserved some fortune. It is Renault’s first win since the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix, also won by Alonso and the Spaniard’s first since Monza 2007.
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| TAINTED: Alonso's victory was lucky to say the least |
In the cooling down room to the podium ceremony, Alonso is joined by Renault team principal, Flavio Briatore. Alonso brings up the subject of the Safety Car, admitting his surprise at the success and he got a lucky break. Others such as Nick Heidfeld, who finished sixth for BMW Sauber already, suspect something amiss with how Alonso benefited, because of Piquet’s crash. For now, the incident is put to bed, but a year on, the actions of three men come out into the open and this incident will go down as one of the biggest cheating scandals in sporting history.
THE REVELATION
The summer of 2009 sees the Renault team struggling again for results. When Alonso loses a wheel and drops out of the Hungarian Grand Prix, TV images catch Briatore, who manages the career of Nelson Piquet Jnr catching an early flight home. This is seen as an insult in Piquet’s lack of race performance. He finishes 12th in Budapest and still has yet to score a championship point in ten outings during 2009. On August 4, the Brazilian is dropped by the Renault team for the rest of the season, to be replaced by GP2 frontrunner, Romain Grosjean. In a statement on his website, Piquet blamed Briatore square on for his abrupt departure;
“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. A manager is supposed to encourage you, support you, and provide you with opportunities. Flavio Briatore was my executioner.”
On September 4, 2009 – the following statement was released on the FIA website, which suggested that Renault were in serious trouble;
"Representatives of ING Renault F1 have been requested to appear before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Monday, 21 September 2009. The team representatives have been called to answer charges, including a breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, that the team conspired with its driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, to cause a deliberate crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of its other driver, Fernando Alonso."
Four days after his sacking by Renault, Piquet had given evidence to the FIA about his part in the race-fixing scandal. He said that he had crashed on purpose in Singapore to bring the Safety Car out, having been told to do so by Symonds and Briatore. He claimed he did what he was told, as it would assure his seat at the team for the following season. A Brazilian TV station made allegations about the claim during August’s Belgian Grand Prix. At the next race in Italy, Alonso claimed that he knew nothing about the ‘plan,’ whilst both Briatore and Symonds claimed Piquet had made it up as a pack of lies. On the Monza weekend, Renault who had initially declined to comment until the WMSC hearing were furious to find out that Piquet’s damming statement had been leaked to the worldwide media. Briatore announced he would be launching criminal charges against the two Piquet’s.’
"I feel really, really upset and sad. What you see today - everything was against Renault, and there was a big damage already for us. This takes the sport into disrepute. I feel Nelsinho is a very spoilt guy, very fragile. We tried everything. All I wanted from him was only performance.”
Four days after the Italian Grand Prix, Renault confirmed that they would not be contesting the charges put against them from the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. They also confirmed that both Briatore and Symonds had left the team, effectively admitting their guilt to one of the most outrageous fixes ever seen in sport. It beggared belief that someone could even think of hatching a plan like this, especially when you consider the threats of safety to other drivers, track marshals, photographers and spectators. F1 2009 had already gone through a bumpy ride, with Lewis Hamilton having been disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix for lying to the race stewards in Melbourne. A threatened breakaway in the summer had taken the sport to the abyss, Massa had suffered head injuries in a freak qualifying crash in Budapest and BMW had become the latest manufacturer to withdraw from F1. This was the latest line of dark stories to batter its reputation and by far, the most damming and ugliest.
THE VERDICT
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| BACK: Pat Symonds is still playing a minor role in the Virgin team |
On Monday 21 September 2009, Renault was given a two-year suspended ban from the FIA Formula One world championship. There was no fine for the team and with no immediate expulsion; it felt like the team had got off lightly. Pat Symonds was given a five-year ban for his role in the incident and is still serving that, although he is currently allowed to be working as a consultant away from the racetrack with Marussia Virgin Racing. Flavio Briatore was given a lifetime ban from all forms of motorsport, which has since been quashed in the appeal courts. Although he has been seen fleetingly in the paddock since 2009, it is unlikely that Briatore, who has now also relinquished his position as main owner of Premiership club Queens Park Rangers will ever return to the sport. Remarkably for giving evidence to the prosecution, Nelson Piquet Jnr was granted immunity and would be allowed to race in Formula One again. However, no team has ever found the runner-up in the 2006 GP2 series worthy to race in the sport again and rightly so. Renault lost Alonso to Ferrari at the end of the 2009 season and the team reduced its stake in the team, selling up to Genii Capital and handing former DAMS boss Eric Bouillier the opportunity to rescue the ailing team. Three major sponsors, including Dutch insurance company ING, pulled the plug on lucrative deals as they didn’t want to be associated with a team that clearly had produced an act of recklessness.
MY VIEW
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| SORRY: Piquet regrets his actions, but his F1 career is over |
Formula One has moved on from this dark incident gladly and the politics have died down in recent seasons. I still can’t believe that a plan could be hatched to produce such desperation to win a motor race. Although Renault and Alonso have moved on, Nelson Piquet’s career ended for his idiocy, whilst the memories and trophies that Briatore and Symonds won in their time together at Benetton and Renault will always be tarnished. The Singapore Grand Prix lives on and is still one of the most dramatic and glamorous races on the calendar, but I doubt it will ever shake off its unfortunate tag of the race that saw a sheer act of cynical behaviour in risking the lives of hundreds to win a race! I just hope no-one would ever think of doing something so cowardly again.
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