PARIS: Renault were handed a suspended permanent ban from Formula One on Monday while former team boss Flavio Briatore was barred for life for his role in a race-fixing scandal that has shamed and stunned the sport.
The former world champions’ suspended ban will last until the end of the 2011 season, after which they will be in the clear. The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) also banished the team’s former engineering head Pat Symonds for five years for fixing last year’s Singapore Grand Prix by ordering Brazilian Nelson Piquet to crash.
Piquet, the 24-year-old driver at the eye of the storm, walked away from the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council hearing unpunished after being given immunity from prosecution in return for testifying.
He said he bitterly regretted his actions, slammed Briatore and hoped another team would give him a second chance.
Spanish teammate and double world champion Fernando Alonso, who won the Singapore race after Piquet’s accident forced the deployment of the safety car, was cleared of any involvement.
“I think that we’ve cut out the bad part and things will now go on exactly as they should,” FIA president Max Mosley told reporters after the verdict. “I think we’ve demonstrated that we’ve dealt with it.”
Renault, who could have been kicked out completely or fined a sum similar to the record $100 million paid by McLaren in 2007 after a spying controversy, did not contest the accusations against them.
They apologized unreservedly and committed to paying the costs of the FIA investigation as well as making a significant contribution to FIA safety-related projects.
“I think it’s the right decision. I think the blame has been placed where the blame should be placed,” said Mosley, denying that the team had escaped lightly.
“The penalty for Renault is disqualification but suspended for two years, so what that means is that provided they don’t do something silly in the next two years, they don’t have any problems,” he added.
“The penalty that we have imposed is the harshest one we can inflict, which is disqualification and it is complete expulsion from the sport. “However, because Renault have demonstrated that they had absolutely no moral responsibility for what took place... it would be wrong in the circumstances to impose an immediate penalty.”
Mosley said Renault, champions in 2005 and 2006 with Alonso, had said they would stay in Formula One. However the team’s chairman Bernard Rey did not answer the question when asked repeatedly by reporters. “We fully support the decision made by the Council. We apologize for such failure in front of the Formula One community, and we hope we can put this behind us,” said Rey. The FIA reserved its harshest sentence for Briatore, a business partner of Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone and leading figure in the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA).
“The penalty for Briatore is that he can no longer be associated with the team, he can no longer be associated with the series, he can no longer come to the paddock at any FIA championship event and he can no longer manage drivers in Formula One,” said Mosley.
The 59-year-old Italian, who did not attend the hearing, is manager of Piquet and Alonso as well as Red Bull’s Australian Mark Webber, Renault’s Romain Grosjean and McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen.
“It’s sad to see a career end like that, but what else could we do?” added Mosley.
Piquet condemns Briatore, hopes for F1 return Piquet, who went to the International Automobile Federation (FIA) to expose what had happened after he had been dropped by the team in August, said in an emotional statement that his time at Renault under Briatore had been a nightmare.
“Having dreamed of being a Formula One driver and having worked so hard to get there, I found myself at the mercy of Mr Briatore,” he said. “His true character, which had previously only been known to those he had treated like this in the past, is now known.
“Mr Briatore was my manager as well as the team boss, he had my future in his hands but he cared nothing for it. By the time of the Singapore GP he had isolated me and driven me to the lowest point I had ever reached in my life,” he added. “I am relieved that the FIA investigation has now been concluded,” Piquet added, apologizing to fans and the FIA.
“Those now running the Renault F1 Team took the decision, as I did, that it is better that the truth be known and accept the consequences. “The most positive thing to come from bringing this to the attention of the FIA is that nothing like it will ever happen again. “I bitterly regret my actions to follow the orders I was given. I wish every day that I had not done it,” he said.
Piquet, whose father and namesake was a triple world champion, said he could not now believe he agreed to the plan presented to him on the morning of the race by Briatore and Symonds. “Listening now to Briatore’s reaction to my crash and hearing the comments he has made to the press over the last two weeks it is clear to me that I was simply being used by him then to be discarded and left to ridicule,” he said.
