Flavio asked me to deliberately crash my car
Nelson Piquet, former Renault F1 driver, stated today that team bosses asked him to deliberately crash to bring out the Safety Car and give his team an advantage. From his statement to the FIA today:During the Formula One Grand Prix of Singapore, held on 28 September 2008 and counting towards the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship, I was asked by Mr. Flavio Briatore, who is both my manager and the Team Principal of the ING Renault F1 Team, and by Mr. Pat Symonds, the Technical Director of the Renault F1 Team, to deliberately crash my car in order to positively influence the performance of the ING Renault F1 Team at the event in question. I agreed to this proposal and caused my car to hit a wall and crash during lap thirteen/fourteen of the race.
If it is true, it’s despicable, and I hope Renault is seriously penalized. If it’s false, then Piquet is an idiot and deserves his booting from the team last month.
After the breakaway series brouhaha earlier in the year, and the departure of BMW and Honda from the sport, this episode is doing nothing to help the sport. Formula 1 has long been marketed as the “pinnacle of motorsport.” Well, it’s certainly the pinnacle of something…
From grandprix.com
