F1 Ecclestone speaks as 'crash-gate' erupts

[PanterroR]

Amid the deafening silence from the Renault and Piquet camps, F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone went on an overnight media offensive as his sport's latest scandal erupted.

"It is not good for the sport. It all seems very strange to me but I do not know the truth, I have no idea," said the 78-year-old, who gave quotes and seemingly also information to multiple British newspapers.

The new reports indicate that the source of the accusation is Nelson Piquet and his famous father and namesake, furious that the 23-year-old driver was ousted by the French team after the Hungarian Grand Prix last month.

It is also suggested that the saga, which might go all the way to a hearing of the World Motor Sport Council, could prompt Renault to quit the sport no matter the outcome and end Flavio Briatore's F1 career.

"I think it will piss off Renault," Ecclestone said. "Them leaving the sport is a danger, obviously."

Ecclestone is a friend and confidante of the irascible Briatore, with whom he owns the London football club Queens Park Rangers. He said the Italian is "well and truly upset".

It has been reported that Fernando Alonso may be implicated if he knows anything about Piquet's Singapore crash, and Ecclestone warned that Piquet also risks finding himself in hot water by making such serious accusations.

"If it is true, then I would have thought Nelson was in just as much trouble.
If I tell you to go and rob a bank and you get caught, you can't say, 'Bernie told me to'," the Briton said.

"But it could just be a rumour and Nelson is just pissed off that he has been fired."

Ecclestone described Piquet as "an angry young man" and suggested that, no matter what, his F1 career is over.

"You can safely say that he's sort of in trouble now. You'd have to wonder what next, wouldn't you?" he said.

"All I know is that Flavio is insisting that he knows nothing about it," added Ecclestone, who nonetheless admitted the FIA would likely react strongly if there is any truth to the rumours.

The FIA is looking into the claims, but the Paris federation confirmed that an investigation is underway without referring specifically to the Singapore GP nor Piquet or Renault.

"It will be difficult to prove," Ecclestone continued. "If there is something on the radio that said, 'Er, Nelson, you'd better crash now', then what the hell can they do?

"(But) we would have copies of those conversations and someone would have come forward in the interim," he added.


Source: F1 : Ecclestone speaks as 'crash-gate' erupts - RENAULT - F1-Live.com

 

[coligny]

Please... kill the F1 championship already... make it stop... it's now all pain and no pleasure...

 

[Zonda]

This is what, 1 year old?

Nelson needs to go to Nascar.

 

[Deleted member 25]

A meeting between Nelson Piquet, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds hours before last year's Singapore Grand Prix is central to the race fixing allegations surrounding the Renault team, AUTOSPORT has learned.

With the FIA's World Motor Sport Council due to meet on September 21 for Renault to answer charges that the team caused a deliberate crash in Singapore last year to help Fernando Alonso win, sources have confirmed for the first time background details of the case.

AUTOSPORT understands that key to what happened in the race is the discussion that took place in one of Renault's offices at the Singapore track on the Sunday, where race tactics were discussed between Piquet, team principal Briatore and director of engineering Symonds.

Sources claim that in evidence submitted to the FIA by Nelson Piquet, the Brazilian driver says he was asked by Briatore and Symonds to crash deliberately early in the race so as to help Alonso win.

Piquet says that he agreed to do so because he felt uncomfortable about his situation at the team, with Renault having not renewed his contract for 2009 at that time - and Briatore was stalling on making a firm commitment. Piquet suggests that he only went ahead and caused the accident because he felt he would be rewarded for his actions.

In his evidence, Piquet claims that he was taken aside by Symonds after the first meeting and instructured that he should crash on lap 13 or 14, shortly after Alonso's scheduled first stop, at Turn 17.

The reason this part of the track was singled out was because there were no cranes present there to lift the car away, so any accident would virtually guarantee a safety car.

Piquet's claims have, however, been denied by both Briatore and Symonds in documents that are believed to have been submitted with the FIA. Although they confirm that the meeting between the three of them took place, both suggest that it was Piquet's own suggestion to cause an accident.

Sources claim that the Singapore race-fix matter came to light on July 26 - the day of Piquet's last race for Renault in Hungary - when his father Nelson contacted FIA president Max Mosley to make him aware of what had happened.

Piquet Jr. then visited the FIA's headquarters in Paris on July 30 to present a statement to FIA representatives, believed to be stewards' advisor Alan Donnelly, and external investigators from the Quest agency.

Following Piquet's testimony, the three stewards from the Singapore Grand Prix, plus two external investigators from Quest, were flown to the Belgian Grand Prix to conduct interviews with Renault representatives.

A report in Italian magazine Autosprint also suggests that telemetry data from Piquet's car has emerged as another reason why the matter has gone to the WMSC.

At Turn 17 where Piquet crashed, normally the rear wheels of the Renault would lose grip on the exit - requiring the driver to ease off the throttle briefly. However, on the lap he crashed, Piquet kept accelerating even though the rear wheels had lost grip.

Briatore is reported to have claimed that he was: "a victim of extortion by the Piquet family.

"I confirm the meeting with Piquet on Sunday morning, but nothing like that was ever talked about. I also remember that Piquet at Singapore was in a very fragile state of mind. Besides that, there are the audio recordings where I express disappointment when I see on the screens that Piquet had crashed."

Symonds is also reported as saying: "It's true, during the Sunday meeting with Piquet the issue of deliberately causing a SC deployment came up, but it was proposed by Piquet himself. It was just a conversation."

Renault has said it will not comment on the matter officially before the WMSC hearing later this month.

autosport.com - F1 News: Race-day meeting key to Renault case

 

[Centurion]

I'm not totally surprised by this as I expressed my suspicion last year. The whole victory was just too much of a coincidence, and further more Alonso cut the first chicane in the first corner and got away with it. It was a rotten victory.

 

[Wunderkind]

Young Nelson Piquet has definitely learnt from Fernando Alonso.

"If the team did not acquiesce to my demands, I'll make sure I kill the team by going to the FIA with incriminating evidence." Senor Alonso

Time for Flavio to take it up the backside.

 

[Sunny]

Piquet suggests that he only went ahead and caused the accident because he felt he would be rewarded for his actions.

Wow, after admitting to that, I doubt they will even find a ride with the local go-cart team.

 

[Centurion]

Young Nelson Piquet has definitely learnt from Fernando Alonso.

"If the team did not acquiesce to my demands, I'll make sure I kill the team by going to the FIA with incriminating evidence." Senor Alonso

Time for Flavio to take it up the backside.

And yet again Alonso is embroiled in another cheating scandal, but let's wait until the verdict is out. One thing is for sure though, Nelson and his father are pissed.

 

[Wunderkind]

Wow, after admitting to that, I doubt they will even find a ride with the local go-cart team.

The Piquets have been trying to find financial backers to support them to buy a F1 team but to no avail.

 

[Remy Zero]

I'm not totally surprised by this as I expressed my suspicion last year. The whole victory was just too much of a coincidence, and further more Alonso cut the first chicane in the first corner and got away with it. It was a rotten victory.

Well, Alonso won without any SC at Fuji. Definitely Singapore was no fluke.

I'm still refusing to believe that Renault fixed that race. I just think it's some usual threats from the PK family, over the sacking issue.

Nelson PK Jr. has always been in a fiery mood. Look at all his interviews. I've never seen a young punk that curses and being that angry in some interviews. So, seriously i won't be surprised he planned all this and now just to hit back at Flav and Renault, he came out and said he was set up, the race was a set up.

Obviously, the FIA can't ignore the allegations, and hence the investigation. The way i look at it, PK just screwed his life up. He should go back to college or whatever, and get a degree and start looking for a normal job now. He's definitely done with racing.

 

[Remy Zero]

And yet again Alonso is embroiled in another cheating scandal, but let's wait until the verdict is out. One thing is for sure though, Nelson and his father are pissed.

How sure are you that Alonso is involved directly in this? It's really amazing how much of hatred u have against him. You seem to point your fingers at him for almost everything.

 

[Wunderkind]

How sure are you that Alonso is involved directly in this? It's really amazing how much of hatred u have against him. You seem to point your fingers at him for almost everything.

I think Alonso was involved. He must have been. Remy Zero, think about it, the driver will confer with his engineers, strategists (and team principal) to formulate their race strategies prior to qualifying as they have to decide on the amount of fuel the driver needs to get through to the first pitstop.

Alonso's car would have been very light on fuel to enable him to overtake the cars in front of him and sustain his charge up the field until lap 12 (which Piquet alleged was the the lap at which Nelsinho was to crash and cause the safety car to come out and allow Alonso to pit and fuel up). If Alonso was not involved, his car would have ran on a normal strategy with proper levels of fuel similar to other cars.

I think for Flavio and Simmonds to point the finger back at Nelson Piquet is a bit rich. Their retort will be futile. After all, it has to be Simmonds and the engineers that came up with the whole well-laid plan to get Nelsinho to crash at the precise location where the overhead cranes cannot reach the stranded car. The driver (especially one as inexprienced as Nelsinho) could not have come up with such an elaborate plan.

I'd be very very surprised if no one gets banned from motor racing over this. Not to mention a fine and Renault to pay for all the financial damages sustained by other teams due to that "accident" in the race. Schumacher's "parking" at Monaco in 2006 was punished lightly because Monaco officials pleaded with the FIA for leniency on Ferrari's behalf. But no such luck this time.

Ron Dennis must be glad he got out of F1 at the right time and see from the outside how Flavio and Simmonds take it up the backside on this. Ron must be laughing his butt off at the moment.

I love it!

 

[Centurion]

Although Alonso is unlikely one of the lead architects behind this madness, he is sure not stupid not to know what was going on. With the Ferrari and Santander deal signed, Alonso has probably already started to sell of his Renault cars in preparation for a F458 Ferrari will be giving him. Yet again he'll leave a team in ruins. I'd be very surprised if Renault don't pull out of the circus as the end of this season. There's really nothing positive in it for them: Their car lacks pace, ING has not renewed the sponsorship contract, Alonso is leaving and they are now embroiled in a scandal with devastating consequences.

 

[Remy Zero]

I think Alonso was involved. He must have been. Remy Zero, think about it, the driver will confer with his engineers, strategists (and team principal) to formulate their race strategies prior to qualifying as they have to decide on the amount of fuel the driver needs to get through to the first pitstop.

Alonso's car would have been very light on fuel to enable him to overtake the cars in front of him and sustain his charge up the field until lap 12 (which Piquet alleged was the the lap at which Nelsinho was to crash and cause the safety car to come out and allow Alonso to pit and fuel up). If Alonso was not involved, his car would have ran on a normal strategy with proper levels of fuel similar to other cars.

I think for Flavio and Simmonds to point the finger back at Nelson Piquet is a bit rich. Their retort will be futile. After all, it has to be Simmonds and the engineers that came up with the whole well-laid plan to get Nelsinho to crash at the precise location where the overhead cranes cannot reach the stranded car. The driver (especially one as inexprienced as Nelsinho) could not have come up with such an elaborate plan.

I'd be very very surprised if no one gets banned from motor racing over this. Not to mention a fine and Renault to pay for all the financial damages sustained by other teams due to that "accident" in the race. Schumacher's "parking" at Monaco in 2006 was punished lightly because Monaco officials pleaded with the FIA for leniency on Ferrari's behalf. But no such luck this time.

Ron Dennis must be glad he got out of F1 at the right time and see from the outside how Flavio and Simmonds take it up the backside on this. Ron must be laughing his butt off at the moment.

I love it!

According to top Renault guys, the ones involved, if there's any case at all, that is, is Pat Symonds, Flavio Briatore, and Nelson PK. Alonso was not present during that Sunday morning where, this 3 guys met up apprently at the Renault office at the SIngaporean track.

I'm quite sure Fred would have steered clear of this. He's not that stupid as PK. He has a massive career ahead of him, unlike PK now.

 

[Remy Zero]

Although Alonso is unlikely one of the lead architects behind this madness, he is sure not stupid not to know what was going on. With the Ferrari and Santander deal signed, Alonso has probably already started to sell of his Renault cars in preparation for a F458 Ferrari will be giving him. Yet again he'll leave a team in ruins. I'd be very surprised if Renault don't pull out of the circus as the end of this season. There's really nothing positive in it for them: Their car lacks pace, ING has not renewed the sponsorship contract, Alonso is leaving and they are now embroiled in a scandal with devastating consequences.

How would Alonso knowing this benefit him in any way? As you mentioned, Fred knows the so call Ferrari deal is done, why would he risk his reputation and head to Ferrari? Why would he be part of cheating team, when he knows, there's a high chance this would come and haunt him back? He learnt all those while at Mclaren.

Your blaming Alonso like as if he's the one sat down, planned everything and executed everything. You seem to forget that he's just a driver, a Renault employee. The reason all of this came along is just based on the simple fact that PK was sacked.

Like i mentioned earlier, your hatred towards Alonso is clouding your judgement here. Perhaps, the only stuff your right is that Renault will pull out at the end of the year.

 

[Remy Zero]

Nelson Piquet will not be punished as part of the 'crash-gate' saga, FIA president Max Mosley has revealed during an interview with Auto Motor und Sport.

"No," the Briton said. "We have promised him immunity if he cooperates," Mosley added, referring to the Brazilian driver's sworn statement to the FIA about the Singapore GP crash affair. "We did the same thing two years ago with Alonso in the espionage case.”

The same immunity has not been granted to Alonso, the winner of the event last September, this time around, but Mosley said there is no evidence the Spaniard was a part of the conspiracy.

Asked to compare this scandal with 'spy-gate', Mosley explained: "The problem with McLaren was that they were not telling the truth. But purely regarding what Renault is accused of, this (the crash accusation) is perhaps worse."

Evidence that has been leaking into the media in the past days does not bode well for Renault's chances at the 21 September hearing, but Mosley said the French team must for now be given the benefit of the doubt.


"We do not have enough evidence in hand because we have not heard the story from the perspective of Renault," said the FIA president. "There are always two sides to a coin and we have to respect that."

Mosley admitted that telemetry data in the FIA's possession seems to indicate that Piquet caused the crash deliberately, but he warned that part of Renault's defence might be "numerous similar cases" in which a driver has legitimately lost control in the same way.

Meanwhile, he has bad news for Nico Rosberg, who had hoped that a retrospective disqualification for Alonso would make him a debut GP winner.

"We cannot change the outcome of the race," said Mosley, explaining that after November 30 last year, the 2008 world championship results were set in stone.

 

[Remy Zero]

Renault has commenced legal proceedings against former team driver Nelson Piquet and his father over allegations leaked to the media regarding the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

Renault has always said that they have no intention of commenting on the issue ahead of the World Motor Sport Council meeting on September 21 in which they are to face charges of conspiring with Piquet to cause a deliberate crash.

A sworn statement from the Brazilian claims that he was instructed to crash during the grand prix and therefore help Fernando Alonso exploit his aggressive fuel strategy to take the victory.

A statement from Renault today reiterated the team will "not commented publicly during the FIA's initial investigation into this matter" while adding that legal proceedings are now underway.


"ING Renault F1 Team and its Managing Director Flavio Briatore personally, wish to state that they have commenced criminal proceedings against Nelson Piquet Junior and Nelson Piquet Senior in France concerning the making of false allegations and a related attempt to blackmail the team into allowing Mr Piquet Jnr to drive for the remainder of the 2009 season. The matter will also be referred to the Police in the UK."

 

[Deleted member 25]

Renault boss Flavio Briatore says it has been tough for his team to cope with the accusations levelled at them by former driver Nelson Piquet and his father - but he is not totally surprised at the way things have turned out.

Briatore believes that the race-fix claims levelled at him and his team, which he has denied and is taking legal action against the Piquets over, follows a pattern of besmirching that Piquet Sr carried throughout his F1 career.

One of his most famous outbursts came in a magazine interview when he was still driving, when the three-time champion accused Ayrton Senna of being gay and said that Nigel Mansell's wife was 'ugly'. Those remarks caused outrage at the time.

"We know Nelson's story, he's always run down everyone," explained Briatore at Monza. "Nelson drove for me and... Nelson is blackmailing, and that's what we have brought.

"It's very tough for Renault to have had these put downs from Nelsinho and from Piquet Sr, but then we know Piquet Sr. He has always denigrated everyone - starting from [Ayrton] Senna, to Mansell's wife, to everyone. That's what Piquet Sr has always done. I know him well because he raced for us, I know Sr better than Jr."

Briatore has also said that the complaints from Piquet Jr extended beyond pure racing terms - as he revealed he was also accused by the Brazilian of wrecking friendships he had.

"He [Nelsinho] has also heavily accused me of breaking his relationship with a friend of his. I don't want to be accused unfairly, so I want to say that I did it because Nelsinho's father asked me to," explained Briatore.

"Nelsinho used to live with this gentleman: the nature of their relationship is unknown. His father was very worried about the relationship Nelsinho used to have with this 50-year-old man. They used to live together, and his father asked me to intervene.

"I made this gentleman not come to races anymore, and I made Nelsinho move from Oxford to London in a building where I live, in order to keep him under control.

"I was asked to by his father, and now Nelsinho accuses me of having even taken his friends away from him - I don't know what kind of friends these are, but he accuses me of that."

Briatore's claims about Piquet come amid the surfacing of fresh details about the events of the day at Singapore and how he crashed his car on purpose.

In a second statement that Piquet supplied to the FIA at the office of investigative agency Quest in London on August 15, Piquet reveals that he was summoned into Briatore's office for the alleged meeting where the crash plan was discussed between 4pm and 5pm on race day.

He says the meeting did not last very long - and he was asked not to speak about what was discussed.

"In the course of the meeting, Briatore said very little," claimed Piquet in his FIA statement, a copy of which has been seen by AUTOSPORT. "As the meeting drew to a close, Mr. Symonds told me that I should not speak about the plan with anyone else and said that he would give me further instructions shortly. I believe the meeting in Mr Briatore's office lasted no more than ten minutes."

After claiming that Symonds later told him where to crash on the track, Piquet provided further evidence about how he deliberately caused the accident.

"After ensuring I was on the designated lap of the race, I deliberately lost control of my car on the exit to turn 17. I did this by pressing hard and early on the throttle.

"As I felt the back end of the car drifting out, I continued to press hard on the throttle, in the knowledge that this would lead to my car making heavy contact with the concrete wall on the far side of the track and thereby cause a crash necessitating the deployment of the safety car."

He added: "Once the back end of the car had begun to drift out, the only way of recovering control of the car and avoiding a contact with the concrete wall would have been to back off on the throttle.

"However, I did not back off the throttle to any material extent. Rather, I pressed hard on the throttle beyond the moment at which the back end started to drift out and, indeed, right up to and beyond the point of impact with the concrete wall."

Piquet's claims about how he caused the crash have been backed up by telemetry data of the incident, which forms part of the evidence against the Renault team at the World Motor Sport Council hearing that takes place in Paris on September 21.

This is becoming interesting

 

[Remy Zero]

This is becoming interesting

LoL

 

[Sunny]

More I think about it, more I am sure Renault is guilty especially if it can be proved by telemetry that the crash was deliberate. There is no good explanation for why Piquet would deliberately crash the car besides having been asked to.

Also heard on Speed TV during Monza qualifying coverage that Flavio apparently made some remark to the effect that "if he asked someone to rob a bank and that someone does it, he cannot be held responsible".