By cutting off its ties with the conspirators at the center of the “crashgate” scandal, Renault’s Formula One team has been shown mercy by the sport’s governing body.
Renault received a suspended two-year ban by the FIA on today after the French team announced last week it would not contest charges of race-fixing stemming from a crash at the 2008 Grand Prix of Singapore. If the team breaks any rules within the next two years, it risks a permanent ban from the sport. Los Angeles Times
Flavio Briatore, who quit as team principal last week, was banned indefinitely from F1 activities by the World Motor Sport Council. Engineering executive director Pat Symonds, who also left Renault last week, was banned for five years after expressing his “eternal regret and shame” that he participated in the conspiracy.
“We gave them a suspended sentence because Renault demonstrated that the team had no responsibility and the company even less,” FIA president Max Mosley said.
Piquet, who received immunity from FIA, was ordered to crash at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix to help teammate Fernando Alonso win.
Alonso, who attended the hearing in Paris, was cleared of any wrongdoing.
“He answered all the questions and demonstrated that he had no responsibility in the case,” Mosley said.
FIA described the scandal as being of “unparalleled severity,” but the departure of Renault’s top two men meant the team avoided being thrown out of F1 or handed a heavy fine, although it will pay for the investigation. By comparison, McLaren Mercedes was handed a record $100 million fine two years ago after being found guilty of using Ferrari secret data to enhance its own cars’ performances. MiamiHerald.com
The tribunal’s rulings appeared to have been calibrated to steer between two imperatives top F.I.A. officials had to weigh after the Singapore crash scandal broke last month: taking rapid disciplinary action to limit the damage to Formula One’s claim to be pinnacle of international motor sport, yet doing so in a way that stopped short of stripping the sport of another major car manufacturer, Renault, when it is already struggling to cope with the defection in recent months of teams owned by Honda and BMW. A third major manufacturer, Toyota, is said to be reviewing the $500 million it has been spending each year on its Formula One team and has said it will make its decision known in November.
“I don’t think it means anything,” Mr. Mosley said, when a reporter asked him what the implications of the tribunal’s findings were for Renault’s future participation in Formula One. When asked if Renault intended to stay in Formula One, he replied, “Yes,” without elaborating of affirming that he had that assurance from the company. “Because Renault has demonstrated that they have absolutely no moral responsibility for what took place — that the team didn’t have, still less did the company, have any responsibility at all — it would be wrong in all cases to impose an immediate penalty,” he said.
But the tribunal’s actions seemed unlikely to satisfy Formula One’ critics, who say the sport has been rocked in recent years by scandals rooted in a culture corrupted by the billions of dollars that wash through it every year, engaging many of those involved — team owners, sponsors, regulators and drivers — in a closed world where Grand Prix racing’s long-term interests have been compromised. New York Times
