It appears Nelson Piquet Jr. is responsible for the “new evidence” the FIA is using against Renault in the race fixing allegations related to last year’s Singapore Grand Prix.
A meeting prior to the race between Piquet, team boss Flavio Briatore and director of engineering Pat Symonds forms the basis of the case against the manufacturer.
Renault has been called before the World Motor Sport Council on September 21 to answer charges that Piquet Jr. deliberately crashed in order to help teammate Fernando Alonso win the race.
Both Briatore and Symonds have denied the claim, suggesting instead that it was Piquet’s idea to cause the deliberate crash. TSN.ca
Nelson Piquet has sensationally claimed that he told race investigators he was asked to deliberately crash his car during last year’s Singapore Grand Prix.
The son of triple world champion Nelson Piquet senior has given evidence that he met with technical head Pat Symonds and Renault boss Flavio Briatore hours before the start of the sport’s first night race.
During the discussions he says he was asked to crash his car around lap 14. Piquet claims that he agreed because his place in the team was under threat. Mirror.co.uk
Although they confirm that a meeting took place with Piquet, they say that it was the Brazilian’s suggestion to cause an accident, not theirs. Briatore was quoted as saying he felt he was a victim of “extortion” by the Piquet family, while Symonds said the subject of trying to cause a safety-car deployment did come up, but it was “just a conversation”.
The Brazilian driver, who was sacked by Renault at the end of July this year, is thought to have told the FIA that he went ahead with the plan only because he thought he would be rewarded for his actions.
Piquet is said to have told investigators working for the FIA that he was instructed by Symonds to crash his car on lap 13 or 14 of the 61-lap race, shortly after Alonso’s first pitstop, and that he should do so at turn 17, where the team had spotted that there were no cranes to remove his car quickly, thus making a safety-car interruption inevitable. Times Online
But investigators for Quest, the detective agency run by Lord Stevens, the former head of the Metropolitan Police, working with FIA stewards, claim to have uncovered further evidence. At the corner where the accident happened Piquet lifted his foot off the accelerator on every lap to prevent the car crashing as it lost grip on the kerbs. Every lap except the one he crashed on.
Investigators are also probing Renault’s claim that Piquet was the architect of the race fix and investigating why, far from being suspended after the race, he was re-signed, although he was ditched after half a season.
There is further evidence that Piquet asked which lap he was on early in the race, although he was not due to pit for at least 10 laps more.
Renault face expulsion from Formula 1 if the case is proven, and a fine stretching to tens of millions of pounds. Mirror.co.uk
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