Renault controversy suggests the evil of fixing has now made an entry into F1
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Is Renault scandal the beginning of the end?
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Renault controversy suggests the evil of fixing has now made an entry into F1
Once more sport is the loser.
And you wonder just where it will all end after team principal Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, executive director of engineering, left Renault amid allegations they conspired with driver Nelson Piquet Junior to cause a crash at last year's Singapore Grand Prix.
The reason they are alleged to have done so was to bring out the safety car to allow their other driver, Fernando Alonso, to win the race.
Renault have decided not to contest those allegations and it is difficult to think of a more damaging outcome for the sport of motor racing, which has been bedevilled by so much scandal and political in-fighting these past two years.
It is one thing for motor racing to survive the enduring accusation that it is a business and not a sport.
It is one thing for it to be mired in technicalities and bulging egos and charges of being increasingly boring through lack of overtaking.
Turn-off
It can deal with all those, but the biggest turn-off for any sport is when its followers can no longer believe what they are seeing.
That is what Briatore seems to have done to Formula One.
When drivers are being said to be ordered to crash into walls, the sport has crossed a line as immoral as it is dangerous.
Has sport really come to this?
Has it really come down to a driver risking his life by cheating to gain a few lousy points in a sport in which the dangers have always conveyed an unrivalled honour?
Formula One has such a tradition of heroes.
Daredevil racers such as Juan Manuel Fangio, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell. And far too many who lost their lives in real crashes such as Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark and Gilles Villeneuve.
The Renault allegation is an insult to the memory of those heroes.
Yet, the one consolation is they have been uncovered. Both in rugby and now Formula One. The protagonists have been drummed out of the sport or been pressured to jump before they were pushed.
It is why it would be harsh for the FIA to throw Renault and its 700-strong workforce out of the championship for the wrongdoings of a few cheats.
As for Briatore, what will he do now? Well, he will have a lot more time on his hands to watch Queens Park Rangers, where he is one of the co-owners, with ambitions to get into the Premier League.
First, of course, he would need to pass a fit and proper person test.
The author is Chief Writer, Press
Association Sport
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