Briatore Quits Renault!!!

Thanks Piquet for continuing to destroy the sport.

Managing director Flavio Briatore and executive director of engineering Pat Symonds have left Renault over race-fixing allegations, which the team will not contest.

Timeline of scandal Mosley: More teams will leave Renault have been the subject of an investigation by the governing FIA regarding allegations that former driver Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed in the Singapore Grand Prix last season.

The incident in the night race enabled team-mate Fernando Alonso to win as he was favourably placed for safety-car conditions.

Brazilian Piquet Jr, who was recently sacked from his seat, and his three-times world champion father Nelson Piquet Sr had accused Renault of forcing him into the act.

Reports on Tuesday suggested Symonds, who deals with trackside operations, had been offered immunity from punishment in exchange for full disclosure of what happened.

"The ING Renault F1 Team will not dispute the recent allegations made by the FIA concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix," Renault stated.

"It also wishes to state that its managing director, Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team.

"Before attending the hearing before the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on 21 September 2009, the team will not make any further comment."

Prior to the exit of flamboyant Italian Briatore and Englishman Symonds, Renault had accused the Piquets of blackmail and announced they were launching criminal proceedings against them.

Renault will still face the FIA's World Motor Sport Council hearing in Paris on September 21, as the charge was levelled against the team and not any one individual.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/16092009/58/briatore-renault-admit-charge.html

I wouldn't say Piquet was destroying the sport, it seems like Flavio, Alonso & Renault were the culprits.

Poor Flavio, how will he possibly occupy all of his new found free time?

Oh right, probably with supermodels.

Bastard.

how would Alonso have had anything to do with it? as has been said before, I find it hard to believe that any race altering strategies were thought up by drivers attacking the course at maximum tilt.

"and his three-times world champion father Nelson Piquet Sr had accused Renault"

That's a new development that lends far more believability to the story!

And the F1 soap opera just gets curiouser and curiouser.

In reply to NYG95GA:

I's a whole hell of a lot better than The Young and the Restless or any other soaps my grandmother would watch.

Quit!? The story I read said they were fired. And Renault is "not contesting" the allegations. That's an admission of guilt. Renault knows Briatore did it and is trying not to get banned by firing him and throwing themselves on the mercy of the FIA.

Journalism being what it is, it may be a while before we get the true story, if at all.

Interesting that when Briatore filed the criminal complaint against Piquet he said he felt he was "about 80% assured" he could prevail. Sounds like someone that thinks he could manipulate the situation to a victory, rather than someone that knew he was in the right. That certainly sounds like someone that would purposely crash a car thinking he could get away with it.

In reply to maroon92:

There is no way that Alonso would not know about the plan before the race.

He is a two time world champ and a huge control freak. How would he not know he had no gas in his car? I can't believe that any drive ever leaves the pits without knowing exactly how much gas in in the tank.

Alonso is a great driver, he is going to question why they want to put him on such a completely odd strategy when he was starting in 15th place. He is not a rookie who will just get in and drive, he isn't going to just do what he is told without question (ask Hamilton).

He knew what the plan was. I don't really think that he should be punished, but I don't think that he is guilt free.

If I were a director of Renault, I would loudly make the case to my board at our next meeting that the company needs to really take a stand against this sort of thing, by withdrawing from Formula 1 entirely. Upsides: Renault instantly saves hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and waves goodbye to that toxic troll, Ecclestone, and Gruppenfuhrer Mosely. Downside: um, well, there would be no more trickledown technology from the cars, I guess, but so few Renaults run at 12,000 rpm these days. I think they'd cope.

Stealthtercel wrote: toxic troll, Ecclestone, and Gruppenfuhrer Mosely.

I lol'd at this.

dmeadow wrote: ... Renault is "not contesting" the allegations. That's an admission of guilt.

In legal terms, I think that is known as "Nolo Contendre". It's just hard to believe a team would ball up a car on purpose for points, although I realize points mean $ at the end of the season.

And yes, this is much better that the Young and the Restless.

Stealthtercel wrote: If I were a director of Renault, I would loudly make the case to my board at our next meeting that the company needs to really take a stand against this sort of thing, by withdrawing from Formula 1 entirely. Upsides: Renault instantly saves hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and waves goodbye to that toxic troll, Ecclestone, and Gruppenfuhrer Mosely. Downside: um, well, there would be no more trickledown technology from the cars, I guess, but so few Renaults run at 12,000 rpm these days. I think they'd cope.

Except that they just signed a new Concorde agreement that I am sure has huge financial penalties if they were to just up and leave. If it didn't, why wouldn't BMW sign it and save a spot on the grid for their teams new owners?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6836959.ece

For me, there's a lot of emotions about this...

First I don't see how this is cheating, especially since it involves cars on the same team. I don't like it - at all - but for very different reasons.

This is just the next evolutionary step in winning at any cost. How much is a key victory worth? Millions? Sure. Enough monitary value to purposely remove your other car from invalidating the needed win? Sure.

From now on, F1 risks being viewed the same way as other pro sports, where we wonder if the game's been fixed. "We want you to win, so that car there has to not win, make it so."

The real shame to me is that F1 is apparently so rolling in money that such antics can even be considered. While most of us anguish over what tires to buy, it's apparently now okay to destroy a multi-million dollar car if it gets the team a much-needed win. Boy, talk about giving all your sponsors the finger. "Here's how much we appreciate the support, but hey, your car won, right?"

Another nail in the coffin for a sport to remain a sport, turning into a cold-hearted business.

kb58 wrote: ...From now on, F1 risks being viewed the same way as other pro sports...

You hit that nail right on the head.

kb58 wrote: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6836959.ece . Of course, why couldn't they have just ordered him into the pits and pushed the car into the garage with "problems" instead of destroying it?

that wouldn't have helped... they needed an incident on course that would force the safety car to deploy .... that way Alonzo could safe enough fuel to finish

don't think that Renault (the big overall Renault) had much to do with this... imo it was Briatore and his firing is Renault's only chance...

kb58 wrote: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article6836959.ece First I don't see how this is cheating, especially since it involves cars on the same team. I don't like it - at all - but for very different reasons.

how would it not be cheating when it affects the out come of the race... If the only way Alonzo had of winning was for the safety car to come out then he shouldn't be rewarded for being party to the scheme that caused that SC deployment.... imo that is cheating....

kb58 wrote: Boy, talk about giving all your sponsors the finger. "Here's how much we appreciate the support, but hey, your car won, right?"

Err, no fat finger to the sponsors until they got caught. The damage to the car is utterly insignificant in $$ value compared to th epotential upside of winning a race and the championship. The Sponsonrs want results, and as long as they don't get bad publicity they don't care how they come. In fact a small amount of not too bad publicity is still publicity and probably a good thing

kb58 wrote: Another nail in the coffin for a sport to remain a sport, turning into a cold-hearted business.

It's both, get over it. It stopped being a sport the day Gold Leaf appeared on the side of a Lotus

kb58 wrote: First I don't see how this is cheating, especially since it involves cars on the same team. I don't like it - at all - but for very different reasons.

I think you are forgetting that the crash was purposely staged to bring out the safety car. Something that affected the outcome of the race for all the cars involved, not just Renault. I'd agree, if this were just the same old "team order" thing that has been going on for years (Barrichello being told to pull over for Schumacher, for example) then the "cheating" thing is debatable.

You're also forgetting that the crash itself put debris on the track that was a danger to the other cars, both to their ability to finish and potentially causing a follow-on crash and putting the other drivers at risk.

There's no way Alonzo wasn't complicit. Who's to say it wasn't Alonzo's plan from the get-go. Alonzo would stoop to just about anything.

My bad, I forgot the point was to bring out the yellow, not simply removing him from the race. And you're right, dropping crap all over the track for your own selfish needs is pretty bad.

A member on the Autosport.com forums offered the RenaultF1 team's livery for Singapore:

Funny and sad at the same time.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

kb58 wrote: Another nail in the coffin for a sport to remain a sport, turning into a cold-hearted business.

It's both, get over it. It stopped being a sport the day Gold Leaf appeared on the side of a Lotus

Oh believe me, I'm over it - we cancelled our cable TV service in 2002, so I miss out on all this crap. It's amazing how much more you get done in a day without television.

Oh believe me, I'm over it - we cancelled our cable TV service in 2002, so I miss out on all this crap. It's amazing how much more you get done in a day without television.

Funny, we haven't had cable since 97, these days we don't have any TV as our set isn't digital. No problem as anything worth watching is available either from Netflix of the Internet

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

Oh believe me, I'm over it - we cancelled our cable TV service in 2002, so I miss out on all this crap. It's amazing how much more you get done in a day without television.

Funny, we haven't had cable since 97, these days we don't have any TV as our set isn't digital. No problem as anything worth watching is available either from Netflix of the Internet

Same here. No TV (well no channels on the TV, the TV is there, it's hooked up to a DVD player and some game systems) since '95 or so.