Post by QPR Report on Sept 12, 2009 6:31:22 GMT
Changing the name of this site to The QPR/F1 Report Messageboard
The Guardian - Richard Williams
Previous Blog home Formula One's era of greed and mistrust in has turned a code of honour into a rat raceWhatever the outcome of the Renault scandal, the Mosley-Ecclestone era has eroded the traditions of F1
The grand prix circus visits one of its great cathedrals this weekend, a place teeming with the memories of heroes, romance and tragedy. In the gossip-rich Monza paddock, however, most of this year's conversations will concern a scandal of such potential gravity that, taken at face value, it would make last year's McLaren spying affair, for which a fine of $100m was imposed on the guilty party, look no more serious than an outbreak of schoolboy thieving from a sweet shop.
In sporting terms, nothing could be worse for Formula One than the suggestion that a driver was instructed to crash his car in order to make it possible for his team-mate to win the race. The leaking of statements and interviews in recent days, seemingly in an organised attempt either to accelerate or to subvert the due process of law, merely confirms the impression that this is a sport no longer capable of governing itself in a decent manner.
There will have to be a judgment, and justice, although on that count Formula One has long since proved itself unworthy of trust. Renault are denying their team managers instructed Nelson Piquet Jr to crash into the wall in Singapore last year, thus handing an unexpected victory to their team leader, Fernando Alonso. But from a deeper perspective it hardly matters at all whether or not the allegations are true. The fact that they have been made, and taken seriously, is quite bad enough.
If Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, Renault's team principal and technical director, did indeed issue such an order to Piquet, they should be banned immediately and indefinitely from all involvement in motor sport. If they did not, as they insist, then the disquiet must be directed at the source and motives of the claims, and about the way they were placed in the public domain.
Piquet says Briatore and Symonds told him to crash the car. They are said to be claiming that he suggested it, but that the discussion came to nothing. If they are right, however, why did they not respond by sacking on the spot a driver who was already in danger of losing his seat through poor performances? And there has been remarkably little discussion of the effect of such alleged chicanery on the fortunes of poor Felipe Massa, who was leading the race when Piquet crashed but was the victim of a botched pit-stop and ended up losing the world championship by the narrowest of margins.
So once again the much-abused fans of grand prix racing are confronted with the morbid symptoms of the end of an era dominated by Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, in which the acquisition of vast fortunes and the application of selective justice have taken precedence over everything. Mosley's decision to grant a 100-year lease on the sport's broadcasting rights to Ecclestone, who sold them on twice for vastly inflated sums, were a fine example of how they have taken Formula One for a ride. And the allegations against Renault, and the way they became public knowledge, show how poison seeps from every pore of a sport that once operated according to a code of honour.
There were expressions of disbelief when the allegations were made public. In earlier eras of grand prix racing, dirty tactics were very much the exception. Ask Sir Stirling Moss about Nino Farina, the very first world champion, who had a habit of easing rivals towards the edges of tracks that in those days were bordered not by safety barriers but by hedges, ditches, trees and stone walls. And in the last 30 years there was a certain world champion who could barely be persuaded to get into a car unless convinced that his engineers had provided him with some sort of illegal technical advantage. But there has been nothing like this.
The Monza autodrome is where Alberto Ascari, Wolfgang von Trips, Jochen Rindt and Ronnie Peterson died after enriching the sport with their deeds. To them, and to their rivals, the idea of crashing their cars for some nefarious purpose would have been unthinkable. The very existence of these allegations is the measure of how far the sport has been allowed to sink over the past 20 years.
The problem now in Formula One is that nobody believes anyone. Under its present rulers, it finds itself wrapped in a web of deception and sophistry spun by highly intelligent but totally unscrupulous people who have been encouraged to see it as a world in which vast sums of money can be accrued without too many questions being asked.
Regulations are changed on a whim, resulting in aberrant results that distort long-established competitive values. Six wins in seven races for the Brawn team and a pole position for Force India may be someone's idea of fun, but they are the results of a randomly rigged lottery, not of grand prix racing. One month Ecclestone swears that the British grand prix will never return to Silverstone, and the next he is behaving as if he never said it, just because it suits him.
Soon Mosley will be gone, to be followed one day by his little pal. Behind them the pair will leave a sport stripped of its integrity, its old values replaced by a superficial prosperity that can no longer conceal a putrescent core.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/sep/12/renault-formula-one-singapore-crash
The Guardian - Richard Williams
Previous Blog home Formula One's era of greed and mistrust in has turned a code of honour into a rat raceWhatever the outcome of the Renault scandal, the Mosley-Ecclestone era has eroded the traditions of F1
The grand prix circus visits one of its great cathedrals this weekend, a place teeming with the memories of heroes, romance and tragedy. In the gossip-rich Monza paddock, however, most of this year's conversations will concern a scandal of such potential gravity that, taken at face value, it would make last year's McLaren spying affair, for which a fine of $100m was imposed on the guilty party, look no more serious than an outbreak of schoolboy thieving from a sweet shop.
In sporting terms, nothing could be worse for Formula One than the suggestion that a driver was instructed to crash his car in order to make it possible for his team-mate to win the race. The leaking of statements and interviews in recent days, seemingly in an organised attempt either to accelerate or to subvert the due process of law, merely confirms the impression that this is a sport no longer capable of governing itself in a decent manner.
There will have to be a judgment, and justice, although on that count Formula One has long since proved itself unworthy of trust. Renault are denying their team managers instructed Nelson Piquet Jr to crash into the wall in Singapore last year, thus handing an unexpected victory to their team leader, Fernando Alonso. But from a deeper perspective it hardly matters at all whether or not the allegations are true. The fact that they have been made, and taken seriously, is quite bad enough.
If Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, Renault's team principal and technical director, did indeed issue such an order to Piquet, they should be banned immediately and indefinitely from all involvement in motor sport. If they did not, as they insist, then the disquiet must be directed at the source and motives of the claims, and about the way they were placed in the public domain.
Piquet says Briatore and Symonds told him to crash the car. They are said to be claiming that he suggested it, but that the discussion came to nothing. If they are right, however, why did they not respond by sacking on the spot a driver who was already in danger of losing his seat through poor performances? And there has been remarkably little discussion of the effect of such alleged chicanery on the fortunes of poor Felipe Massa, who was leading the race when Piquet crashed but was the victim of a botched pit-stop and ended up losing the world championship by the narrowest of margins.
So once again the much-abused fans of grand prix racing are confronted with the morbid symptoms of the end of an era dominated by Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, in which the acquisition of vast fortunes and the application of selective justice have taken precedence over everything. Mosley's decision to grant a 100-year lease on the sport's broadcasting rights to Ecclestone, who sold them on twice for vastly inflated sums, were a fine example of how they have taken Formula One for a ride. And the allegations against Renault, and the way they became public knowledge, show how poison seeps from every pore of a sport that once operated according to a code of honour.
There were expressions of disbelief when the allegations were made public. In earlier eras of grand prix racing, dirty tactics were very much the exception. Ask Sir Stirling Moss about Nino Farina, the very first world champion, who had a habit of easing rivals towards the edges of tracks that in those days were bordered not by safety barriers but by hedges, ditches, trees and stone walls. And in the last 30 years there was a certain world champion who could barely be persuaded to get into a car unless convinced that his engineers had provided him with some sort of illegal technical advantage. But there has been nothing like this.
The Monza autodrome is where Alberto Ascari, Wolfgang von Trips, Jochen Rindt and Ronnie Peterson died after enriching the sport with their deeds. To them, and to their rivals, the idea of crashing their cars for some nefarious purpose would have been unthinkable. The very existence of these allegations is the measure of how far the sport has been allowed to sink over the past 20 years.
The problem now in Formula One is that nobody believes anyone. Under its present rulers, it finds itself wrapped in a web of deception and sophistry spun by highly intelligent but totally unscrupulous people who have been encouraged to see it as a world in which vast sums of money can be accrued without too many questions being asked.
Regulations are changed on a whim, resulting in aberrant results that distort long-established competitive values. Six wins in seven races for the Brawn team and a pole position for Force India may be someone's idea of fun, but they are the results of a randomly rigged lottery, not of grand prix racing. One month Ecclestone swears that the British grand prix will never return to Silverstone, and the next he is behaving as if he never said it, just because it suits him.
Soon Mosley will be gone, to be followed one day by his little pal. Behind them the pair will leave a sport stripped of its integrity, its old values replaced by a superficial prosperity that can no longer conceal a putrescent core.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/sep/12/renault-formula-one-singapore-crash