Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Suspended sentence for Renault — does the punishment fit the crime?
The news has just come in from Paris, where Renault have been handed a suspended ban from Formula One, while their former boss Flavio Briatore has been banned from all F1 activities, including driver management, and ex-technical chief Pat Symonds is barred for five years.
So the immediate result of the inquiry into race-rigging at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix is that Renault can stay in the sport, provided they stay on their best behaviour for the next couple of years, even though the offence was described by the FIA as one of “unparalleled severity”.
Does that punishment fit the crime, would you say?
It’s well worth reading the FIA media release on this in full. It confirms that Renault admitted conspiring with Nelson Piquet Jr to cause the crash. Here’s a section of the statement:
The World Motor Sport Council considers Renault F1’s breaches relating to the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to be of unparalleled severity.
