Petrolhead Blog » Renault

In defence of Schumi

Adam — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:37:40 +0000

I had intended to write this piece a few days ago. Unfortunately, spending a long weekend camping in a field directly under the landing path for the adjacent East Midlands Airport, pausing only to rock and drink a volume of cider you’ll later come to regret, tends to leave you feeling a tiny bit beaten up. By the time I felt anything like human enough to come up with something coherent, Autosport’s Tony Dodgins had beaten me to it. Still, you’re not all Autosport Plus subscribers, so let’s have at it anyway.

The popular opinion appears to be that Michael Schumacher’s return to Formula 1 racing was a mistake. In the wake of his 11th place finish in Canada last weekend, there were forceful suggestions from fans and media figures alike that Schumi was a desperate character, shorn of his past speed, completely without answers to the pace of his younger rivals. Martin Brundle described Sunday’s race as the worst one he’d ever seen Michael Schumacher drive. Some of the criticism seemed a bit like bandwagon jumping, some of it was written by men very capable of forming their own opinions. What I’m about to do is take that Indianapolis Motor Speedway blog, the opinion of a man who has forgotten more than I’m ever likely to know about motor racing, and then completely disagree with it.

Cards on the table before we start, then. This simple blogger really wants the Schumacher comeback to work. It feels a little strange to be rooting for him, because it got incredibly dull watching him win what seemed like every weekend in the early part of the last decade. Brilliance is that much easier to appreciate when it overcomes a worthy opponent, and with a fantastic car in a team geared around him, Michael managed to go whole years at a time without having to take on such a challenge. No matter how good the package is, though, you still have to drive it, and Michael did that better than anyone else in the modern era. The idea of him returning to put everyone back in their place, the grand old man of motorsport showing he still has it 3 1/2 years after his last race for Ferrari, is one I can wholly support.

That, as anyone with the gift of sight must accept, isn’t happening. Whether he hasn’t yet quite got to grips with a 2010-spec car on this season’s narrower tyres or whether he simply doesn’t have the searing pace of old, Schumacher is not blowing everyone away. He’s spent a fair chunk of the season in broadly the same part of the field as teammate Nico Rosberg, a jolt to all those used to seeing Schumacher, then a 30 second gap, then Rubens Barrichello (it should of course be noted that old Rubinho, whatever you may think of him and however you might perceive his time at Ferrari, was close enough to Michael often enough to earn respect, and sometimes plain faster).

What is happening, though, is that Michael’s getting progressively closer to being the kind of driver demanded by the huge weight of expectation. Having been at best ordinary and at worst dismal through the early-season flyaway races, Spain provided the first glimpse of vintage Schumacher. His overtaking move on Jenson Button, sweeping around the outside of the first chicane as the Brit left the pits and giving the reigning champion precisely one car width and no more with which to do something about it, was a reminder that the aggression and competitive spirit remained undimmed. His defence of the position against a McLaren with a huge advantage in a straightline was a lesson in robust rearguard driving that didn’t once overstep the limits of fairness, and the BBC’s mid-race revelation that Michael was purposely changing his line through corners to cause maximum disruption to the handling of the man behind was startling. The mental capacity for which he became famous, then, must still be there.

Monaco. Leave aside your thoughts on the time penalty he was given, consider the move he made on Fernando Alonso, ask yourself whether it was the move of a man losing his touch, a man with no answers for the drivers around him. If you answer yes, consider doing something else on a Sunday afternoon.

Turkey. A weekend in which Michael had something in hand over Nico from the first lap on Friday morning, drove clean around the outside of Button again on the opening lap and settled in to an uneventful P4 in a car that had nothing for the McLaren and Red Bull battle ahead. Best of the rest might not be where you’re used to seeing the 7-time world champion, but there was no realistic prospect of him finishing any higher.

I know. You’re wondering how there’s any way to defend his performance in Montreal. You’ve taken in all the business about being too aggressive with Kubica, being passed by Sebastien Buemi and a fleet of Force Indias, that swerve on his old mate Felipe Massa towards the end of the race, and you can’t see how it’s possible to excuse the inexcusable.

Let’s immediately get rid of this idea that the Canadian Grand Prix was the worst race he’s ever driven. Dodgins cites the 2003 Japanese event, in which Michael drove into everything that moved on his way to a nervy 8th place and a narrow world championship win. You might wish to select the 2005 Chinese race, which involved an accident on a reconnaissance lap 30 minutes before the race started and a faintly ridiculous spin into retirement while trundling around behind the safety car. You could look to the Hungaroring, where Michael was classified 8th but didn’t make the finish in 2006 after a series of wheel-banging sessions damaged a track rod.

You could, but you’d be as silly to pick that race as you would be to select last weekend’s one.

There are parallels. In Montreal, as in Budapest nearly 4 years back, Schumacher had been on the pace in practice – it suits the ‘give it up now, Michael’ argument to ignore that his pace on Friday in Canada was strong, up with the very quickest cars on a longer run during practice. Both times his grid position was lower than it should have been, in Hungary due to a time penalty for a rule infringement and in Canada due to a bad tyre choice in Q2, the Mercedes not able to generate sufficient heat in its rubber. Both times Schumacher made big strides in the opening part of the race, up to 5th in Hungary and as high as 3rd during the opening pit stop sequence last weekend, 7 seconds off the lead and maintaining the same pace as the Red Bulls.

In 2006, Michael and Giancarlo Fisichella made slight contact, the Ferrari front wing being knocked askew and necessitating a pit stop that sent the German down the order. Last weekend there was no contact, but close quarters racing with Robert Kubica that saw the Mercedes puncture a tyre. Schumacher had Kubica touching the grass on the inside of the track towards turn 3, exactly the kind of aggressive move to maintain position we’ve seen in the past – ask Alonso about the shove into the scenery he took on the opening lap at Silverstone in 2003. Kubica arrived at turn 3 going too quickly to make the turn, and while you could argue that Schumi should have conceded position and passed Robert again as the Renault recovered back to the racetrack, it’s not entirely fair to ignore Kubica’s later admission that he wasn’t in position to complete the pass and would have ceded the place had he not wanted to demonstrate how little he’d been intimidated.

Kubica isn’t averse to the odd dangerous manoeuvre himself, unless you consider violently swerving into the path of a rival at 200 mph in a late, misguided bid to enter the pit lane a safe activity, but I digress.

Puncture repaired, the Merc was now out of sync on tyre strategy, vital in a race that saw teams struggling to get any kind of life out of the softer tyre. Some drivers couldn’t get 5 quick laps from them. In a call that Ross Brawn later admitted was optimistic, Mercedes tasked Schumacher with making them go for half a race. Since he couldn’t, they didn’t.

Lacking grip under braking and visibly down on traction under acceleration, Michael was a sitting duck. Buemi made a very well judged move to claim 8th position, while Massa’s attempted pass was a badly thought-out affair – there wasn’t time to pass on the outside before the final chicane and still turn into the corner, and ample space on the inside for a move that would surely have worked – though there can be no doubt that Michael wombled across the road prior to contact being made. Liuzzi and Sutil snatched the final points positions away on the final lap, after a scrap that occasionally bore greater resemblance to tag team wrestling than to motor racing – Liuzzi and Schumacher made contact through the chicane of turns 6 and 7, matters being resolved in the Italian’s favour when the Mercedes’ rubber cried enough again through the following 8-9 chicane. Sutil’s pass, taking advantage of Michael’s reduced speed as he rejoined the racetrack, was an altogether cleaner affair, but none of Schumi’s aggressors had any doubt that there’d been a race.

A race, though, brought about by the degradation of those soft tyres, which were surely never going to make it, and it’s a fool who overlooks that. Those with longer memories may recall a race a few years back in which, recovering from an unscheduled pit stop, Schumacher found himself on worn tyres (intermediates on a drying track this time), with a queue of cars behind him and no grip to fight them off with. Michael held his ground forcefully, perhaps a little too forcefully at times. More than once, he visited previously uncharted stretches of land, usually located some distance away from the prescribed racetrack, in a bid to hold position. More than once, he refused to concede position even when it seemed prudent to do so, hitting both Pedro de la Rosa and Nick Heidfeld. If you were paying attention a few paragraphs ago, you’ll not need to be told that the race was in Hungary, or that it took place in 2006.

Michael, who came within an ace of making it 8 world titles in what everyone thought was his farewell season, was no spent force then. Incredibly resistant to being overtaken, yes, and driven to stretch the rules to their limits and beyond if it helped him to stave off a challenge from behind, but far from over the hill. Wondering what’s changed since then? As far as I can see, it’s this:

Nothing at all.

Beware the unexpected Spaniard

Adam — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:07:10 +0000

If it seems like only yesterday that Giancarlo Fisichella was being reported as favourite for the vacant Sauber drive, that’s because it really, genuinely was.

Sometimes these things make too much sense. Fisi spent much of 2009 showing well for Force India, before forging late-season links with Ferrari that saw him given a testing and development role with the Scuderia. He still has a desire to race, Sauber have Ferrari engines for 2010, Giancarlo used to drive for Sauber…the pieces came together like a pre-school jigsaw.

Somewhere between yesterday’s news reports and this morning’s driver announcement, Peter Sauber’s dog must have opened the box and ate the piece with Giancarlo’s face on it, for I’m sure that the Roman’s name isn’t spelt ‘Pedro de la Rosa’. The Swiss team have opted to sign the 38-year-old from Barcelona, whose last full season of Formula One came with Jaguar in 2002.

Pedro’s appointment might seem a strange one on the face of it. 8 seasons on from his last full-time drive, de la Rosa has been a fixture at McLaren since being cast aside by Jaguar. Contracted as test driver throughout, the Spaniard nevertheless had a couple of opportunities to race for the Woking outfit. His cameo in Bahrain 5 years ago, after Juan Pablo Montoya hurt himself falling off a tennis racket, was brilliantly entertaining and ended with Pedro claiming fastest lap. His half-season in 2006 when the Colombian quit for NASCAR in mid-season was less startling, Hungarian podium finish notwithstanding. His reputation is that of a solid, reliable pair of hands, lacking in ultimate pace but a very capable development driver. That, of course – well, that and a few Euros in sponsorship money – is why Sauber have signed him.

A month or so ago, Sauber confirmed Kamui Kobayashi as the first of their 2010 race drivers. Kobayashi’s pair of races for Toyota suggest that the Japanese driver has plenty of raw pace but the kind of rough edges that would occupy a sandpaper factory for a week. His racecraft is questionable, his defensive driving on the dangerous side of robust, and he has very little prior experience of setting up a Grand Prix car, though he can hardly be blamed for that. He will show well given a decent car, but can’t be relied on to bring the car home every time, or to lead a development programme through the course of a season.

For that, the team need an experienced old hand, and they don’t come much more experienced than de la Rosa. His technical knowledge, allied to his knowledge of McLaren’s successful working practices (in-depth knowledge, as you’d expect from a trusted member of the team – until today, PdlR was scheduled to give McLaren’s 2010 car its first run next month), will be invaluable. His temperament inside the car tends to be even, as does his performance, an excellent baseline for judging the performance of new parts. A well-respected and approachable man, Pedro is also the ideal mentor for a young, wild hotshoe like his 2010 teammate.

With the right tutelage, Kamui Kobayashi will be the long-term solution, the man charged with making Sauber’s future bright. Surprise choice or not, Pedro de la Rosa is the right man to provide it.

----------------------------------------------------

The filling of Sauber’s vacant seat must have brought great joy to the folks at Renault. Nick Heidfeld is out of a drive. Christian Klien wants one. So does Anthony Davidson, along with his F3 and Super Aguri sparring partner Takuma Sato. If an up-and-coming driver is what they want, and last year’s experience of Romain Grosjean ought be enough to show that it isn’t, Ho-Pin Tung and the delightfully-named Bertrand Baguette are available. If an old hand desperate for one last go fits the Renault profile, Jacques Villeneuve is their man.

The seats at Campos and USF1 will go to drivers bringing sponsorship, and it’s difficult to imagine any of the above-named fancying a drive with either team anyway. With every other competitive seat filled, Renault is their last sensible choice, and that’s a cracking bargaining position for the French squad.

petrolheadblog.com’s 2009 Top 10

Adam — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:31:49 +0000

It’s the done thing at this time of year, isn’t it?

The teams we all expected to challenge were nowhere. The teams we’d written off in pre-season were somewhere, and a team that barely made it to the first race won the whole show. The world champion divided opinion, with his supporters matched in size and volume by those who felt he’d reversed into it having done nothing of note for the last 10 races. The outgoing world champion faced serious scrutiny off the track but answered every critic on it, his nemesis tried his best to make sense of a team in crisis and the last of the big-spending Japanese car makers took their final bow. How do you begin putting that into some kind of order?

With difficulty, as it turns out. What follows is an attempt at ranking the 10 best Formula One drivers of 2009, and is nothing more than opinion, based on sessions watched and timesheets studied. You can make statistics mean whatever you want – you can even use them to suggest that Jenson Button is better than Sir Stirling Moss, and if you dream of doing so then you’re either one of his family or in entirely the wrong place - and so they’ve been left to one side as far as possible. Sometimes the numbers don’t do justice to the performance. Sometimes they flatter it enormously.

To qualify for a place in this particular top 10, a driver needs to have completed at least half of the 2009 season, which means no place for the mightily impressive Kamui Kobayashi, whose two end-of-season races were wonderful but not enough to assess him fairly. There’s also no room for Tonio Liuzzi, Jaime Alguersuari, Romain Grosjean or – but no! But yes! – Luca Badoer. I can but imagine your horror.

That leaves 20 drivers vying for 10 places (and I should mention that yes, friend of petrolheadblog.com Nelson Piquet Jr is eligible), and in a season where the title contenders haven’t always excelled and the best performers have been hiding in the middle of the pack, arriving at a final list hasn’t been easy. You may well disagree, and if you do, I’d very much like to hear from you. Right, shall we begin?

10. Kimi Raikkonen

Why so low? The Ferrari F60 was rarely better than good and quite often a fair bit worse, but the Iceman only appeared interested from mid-season. His rise coincided with the loss of Felipe Massa to injury, and his drives in Valencia, Monza and particularly Spa were brilliant efforts in a car whose development had long since tailed off. At other times, at too many other times, the Finn was a man going through the motions. Off to rally a Citroen in 2010, he’s a loss when operating at his peak but hasn’t truly done so since he left McLaren, 2007 title notwithstanding.

9. Nico Rosberg

Solid. 11 points-scoring finishes, 7th in the drivers championship, but too much promise unfulfilled. He led strongly in Malaysia before crumbling in the rain, made all the wrong calls in China, underwhelmed in a good car through the early part of the European season and finally, after some strong runs mid-season, turned a potential win into a big fat out of control zero at the Singapore pit exit. His drive from the back of the field to 4th at the Nurburgring was a reminder of what he can do, and his pace on Fridays was searing, but too often he fell away a little when it mattered. Whether leading the team or learning from the master, Nico must begin to deliver on his undoubted promise at Mercedes.

8. Sebastien Buemi

20 years old, straight in at the deep end with one of the slowest cars in the field, Buemi outqualified a multiple CART champion in the same car and scored a point first time out in Melbourne. Hello, world. By mid-season the Toro Rosso was even worse, but Buemi clinically disposed of Sebastien Bourdais and was fazed not a jot by his promotion to team leader. His qualifying aberration in Japan was the work of a rookie, his many measured drives weren’t, and his 4 points-scoring finishes were richly deserved. If Red Bull get behind him, Buemi really could be special.

7. Felipe Massa

It isn’t possible to rank him higher without knowing what he might have gone on to achieve, though surviving to see Christmas was achievement enough, and you might feel 7th is too generous for a man who couldn’t complete the season. Before a flying spring curtailed his season, though, Massa had scored more than double the points of teammate Raikkonen. Sensational in dragging the F60 through to 4th at Silverstone and a remarkable 3rd at Nurburgring, spellbinding through a Monaco middle stint that should stand as a lesson in controlled aggression, Felipe operated at but never beyond his car’s limits every time he sat in it. His stock has risen exponentially through the last 24 months, and it’s to be hoped that his return to racing will see him back at the front, in the position his 2009 drives deserved.

6. Rubens Barrichello

Generally brilliant once his season got going, his season kicked into gear just as his Brawn was fading. He had plenty of rotten luck in the early part of the year, but too many of his performances in the dominant car through that period were lacklustre – only 5th in Bahrain after getting trapped behind Piquet Jr, too slow to win in Spain, hitting everything that moved in an entertaining Turkish cameo. Only when we reached Britain did Rubinho really hit his stride, and through the second half of the season he held a definite edge on his title-winning teammate. Wins at Valencia and Monza were richly deserved, and the old stager keeps his place in the 2010 field on merit, but this year was an opportunity missed. At 37, he might not get another.

5. Mark Webber

12 months ago Mark Webber was beginning his recovery from a badly broken leg and shoulder, his bicycle having collided with a car during his Pure Tasmania Challenge charity event. At the end of March he was in Melbourne, suited, booted and ready for action but only half-fit. By mid-July he was a Formula One race winner. A breakthrough season for the Australian might have been even better had he been able to prepare through the winter, and threatened to be more than that anyway before a run of 5 races without a point put paid to his title bid. Only 9th in Valencia could be said to be Mark’s doing, and while his driving might lack that final tenth that separates the great from the world class, Webbo’s performances in the cockpit were a model of consistency.

4. Jenson Button

Button’s world championship year was built on the first 7 races. 6 wins, a 3rd place, a world title bought and paid for. Then, on home soil, his year began to unravel. His fans point out that he scored points in every race he finished and attempt to suggest that he drove sensibly once he’d built up a lead, but an honest analysis is less kind on an Englishman fading under pressure. A number of those mid-season drives, notably runs to 6th at Silverstone, 7th in Hungary and 7th in Valencia, were recoveries from either bad qualifying, bad opening stints or both. His only non-finish, at Spa, came through a first lap shunt after qualifying a dismal 14th. At the same time, the man in the other Brawn, the man Jenson had taken to pieces in the early rounds, was demonstrating that the car was still a race winner. It took Button until Interlagos to clear his head, and on that October afternoon he won the title by finally putting in a performance worthy of it. Next year, partnered with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, early-season JB stands half a chance. Mid-season JB will be ruthlessly dismantled.

3. Fernando Alonso

It’s tempting to write, “Scored 26 points in a truck,” and move on, but it’s worth giving the Spaniard a little more time than that. By the end of 2009 the Renault R29 was as bad as anything else in Formula One, yet somehow in Singapore it carried Alonso to a podium finish, only 16 seconds adrift of winner Lewis Hamilton. Perhaps it’d be more accurate to say Alonso dragged it there. Around the twists of Abu Dhabi, the fast esses of Suzuka and the sweeps of Spa, R29 was the dictionary definition of ‘recalcitrant’ and yet there was never room for a cigarette paper between Alonso and the ragged edge of adhesion. He gave everything, everywhere, and his all-out approach brought a steady flow of points through the year, including a 5th place in Spain that simply shouldn’t have been possible in such a dog of a car.

2. Sebastian Vettel

It’s easy to forget that Vettel is 22 years old and has completed only 2 full seasons as a Grand Prix driver. Every so often we’re given a reminder – slapping the barriers in Monte Carlo, falling off the road before a lap had been completed in Istanbul – and are hit by the realisation that hey, he’s not the complete package after all. His win at Suzuka was the drive of a seasoned veteran, not a man who had never raced on the legendary circuit before. At Silverstone his dominance was crushing, in the mould of another fast German driver. Quick enough to have been this year’s world champion with better reliability and a little more luck, as well as being an immensely likable man, Vettel’s time will come. Soon.

1. Lewis Hamilton

Why? Because it’s incredibly difficult to recall a race in which Lewis let the car down, and incredibly easy now to answer those who instantly accepted Fernando Alonso’s claim that he brought 6 tenths of a second to McLaren. The team might never again produce a racing car as bad as the MP4-24 was at the beginning of the season, yet Hamilton opened with 3 points finishes in the first 4 events, being denied a clean sweep by disqualification during the Australian ‘Liegate’ affair. After that, no points for 5 races as the McLaren’s aerodynamic shortcomings were exposed, most notably at Silverstone where he fought brilliantly with Alonso for 16th position. Hamilton helped drive the development of the car throughout that period, reaping the rewards in Hungary where he took a well-judged win; from zero to heroes in 4 months. Another win in Singapore followed, while his charging drive at Monza was spectacular right to the premature finish. 17th on the grid became 3rd in the race at Interlagos, and his pole lap in Abu Dhabi was nothing short of astounding. Simply, there is nobody better.

Go on, then. Tell me I’m wrong.

A quick F1 digest

Adam — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:26:05 +0000

Listen up, soldiers! A few things to fill you in on.

One of next year’s nailed-on driver moves has been confirmed, Robert Kubica committing to Renault for 2010 and quite possibly no longer than that, being one of the men keeping a keen eye on Felipe Massa’s performance on the off chance that the Brazilian’s comeback falls flat next year. Speaking of comebacks, here’s a little picture of Felipe making his, in a Ferrari F2007 at their Fiorano test track. Felipe’s conduct both on and off the racetrack in the last 12 months won over a lot of doubters, this blogger included, and it’s wonderful to see him back behind the wheel.

Also making a return to competitive action after some time away, according to rumour, is Renault’s traditional yellow and black livery, seen here on Alain Prost’s 1983 car. A variety of sites are reporting it, just like the tabloid sensationalists at Planet F1, but as yet none of them appear to be citing any kind of source. It’d make sense, though; Renault’s current orange, yellow and white colourscheme is a) related to their ING sponsorship, which has now been brought to an end, b) not in any way connected to Renault’s corporate branding and c) chuffing awful.

Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren move, which looked certain last time we spoke, seems to have stalled for now, the rumour being that the Iceman wants $25m for next season and McLaren don’t want to give him it. After a lacklustre first half of the year, Kimi has raised his game brilliantly since becoming de facto team leader after Massa’s Hungarian accident, and it’ll be a crying shame if he doesn’t land a competitive drive for 2010. That could yet happen – the Woking team appear to be his only realistic option at present, with Brawn looking full and no seat at Williams, where the Brazilian media are certain that Rubens Barrichello will begin his 18th full season of F1 next year.

Rubinho himself admits he’s had talks with them, but that nothing is finalised and staying with Brawn remains an option. Everyone else, however, remains certain that Nico Rosberg is going to Brawn for next year. Rubens might be too busy eyeing the skies of his hometown Sao Paulo to care, with the forecast for this weekend’s Interlagos race changing by the day but almost always including the threat of heavy, heavy rain. Jenson Button, needing just 5 points to be sure of the world title, must be thrilled at the prospect of a wild, unpredictable weekend.

At some point we’ll have to cover some more politics, with the FIA presidential elections taking place on October 23rd. For now, it’s enough to say that the Max Mosley-endorsed ex-Ferrari race chief Jean Todt (and that’s not sounding any less repugnant as time goes on, is it?) is busily slinging mud in the direction of his rival, rallying legend turned politician Ari Vatanen. It’s the kind of mud that makes you think the Todt team aren’t absolutely sure they’ve secured the votes they need to win the presidency, and the Vatanen campaign has secured high-profile support from South Africa and Jordan. Note though that Max, and by extension Jean, has a spell cast on a great many banana republics that have the same voting rights as everyone else regardless of whether they hold any race meetings at all in their country, and so a Todt win seems the most likely outcome all the same. We’ll see.

Wonder what Max will be doing in his retirement? Wonder no more – the autobiography is coming…

What Renault’s punishment achieves

Adam — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:57:17 +0000

That punishment, for those who haven’t seen it, is a permanent disqualification from the Formula One world championship, suspended until the end of the 2011 season. The disqualification will be enforced if, and only if, Renault commit another offence of comparable severity before then. When you consider that the FIA called this race-fixing offence ‘of unparallelled severity,’ they’d really need to pull a rabbit out of the hat to get themselves kicked out for good.

There is no financial penalty, which has led some to draw comparison with the $100million fine thrown at McLaren during Spygate in 2007 and conclude that Renault got off lightly. Frankly, they’re probably right, though the two cases aren’t exactly the same; Renault were open once it became clear the charges were fair and took steps to remove those responsible, while McLaren protested their innocence to the point of lying to the FIA and were only found out at a second hearing, having been cleared first time around. The suspended ban is designed to provide some kind of threat while also ensuring that the French manufacturer remains in the sport, at a time when F1 can ill afford to lose another manufacturer in the wake of BMW’s withdrawal.

It also, and I’ll leave you to determine exactly how much weight to put on this, ensures that the teams currently negotiating for a supply of Renault’s engines for next year don’t all have to look elsewhere at short notice in a paddock not presently overflowing with competitive engine suppliers.

Heavier punishments have been dealt out to the individuals behind the crash conspiracy, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. Symonds is barred from involvement with or participation in any FIA-sanctioned championship for the next 5 years, an exclusion that will cut to the bone of one of the paddock’s genuine racers, a man for whom this episode appears entirely out of character.

Briatore, who denied wrongdoing as well as any knowledge of the scheme, has a lifetime ban of the same nature as that given to Symonds. He must also hand over control of the careers of several current top-line drivers, as the stable of drivers he manages will not be granted a licence to race should they continue working with Flavio. Flavio is first and foremost a businessman, not a racer, and has said himself that at 59 years of age he doesn’t need the Renault salary. One would expect him to be more concerned about the potential knock-on effects of the case on his chairmanship of Queens Park Rangers football club, and how much of his shareholding he’ll have to give up. There are other challenges out there for him, and he will find them.

The sport, then, can be seen to have been cleansed of the wrong-doers while maintaining the jobs and, most importantly for the FIA, involvement in the sport of those at Renault who weren’t connected to the race-fixing plans. The man escaping punishment today, Nelson Piquet Jr, was granted immunity from FIA prosecution last week but has surely removed himself from the sport in any case, and appears to know it. Over the last few weeks, team bosses up and down the paddock have learned that in addition to being off the pace and prone to crashing, Nelsinho has a tendency towards desertion when the chips are down. A leader of men he is not, but a weak-willed man of questionable morals, spoilt by a father rich enough to buy him the best equipment throughout his early career? Surely.

This also gives Max Mosley his last hurrah before he hands over the FIA presidency next month. Which recently-formed organisation, made up of representatives from each Formula One team, had Briatore as a major player, second in command to its Italian figurehead? Yup, that one.

Busted

Adam — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:38:21 +0000

It seems that Max was right.

Renault will not dispute the Singapore race-fixing allegations made against them, and principal Flavio Briatore has left the team, along with engineering director Pat Symonds. Symonds has been in Formula One for not far off 30 years, involved with Renault in the team’s original incarnation as Toleman and winning titles with them as Benetton, and has always seemed like one of the good guys of the paddock. It is a shame to see him go, especially under these circumstances. Seeing the back of Briatore, a marketing executive who became involved in running the Benetton team because his bosses told him to rather than because he had the first interest in racing, is rather less upsetting.

As far as is known, the World Motor Sport Council hearing next Monday will go ahead, since removing Symonds and Briatore doesn’t change the fact that it was Renault, not the individuals involved, who were charged. What will happen to the team itself is less clear, and we’ll have a look at that in more detail later, assuming it’s still a topic of discussion when my home access to this place finally returns.

Getting to the point with Flavio Briatore

Adam — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:42:03 +0000

It’s all getting a bit messy in the fascinating Piquet vs Renault battle. Renault have begun criminal proceedings against Nelson Piquet Jr and Sr over an alleged attempt to blackmail the F1 team. Nelsinho, who has been granted immunity by the FIA, is sticking to his guns with a determination, resolve and fighting spirit that would have served him well had he ever thought to deploy them while driving a Formula One car.

In the background, FOTA – you remember FOTA, the lily-livered teams organisation that nearly broke away from Formula One but then didn’t see it through – have begun making noises about the way that statements made to the FIA have been leaked into the public domain. Max Mosley is having the leaks investigated, we’re told, and given that an awful lot of people have decided Renault are guilty without hearing their side of things in full (this writer included, to be honest), the prejudice generated by the revelations thus far might be enough to make such an investigation worthwhile. Then again, they appear calculated, and they’ve made F1 a talking point again; you might feel the reasons are wrong, but can they ever really be so?

While you consider that, consider what Max might be trying to tell us about Renault’s defence case here, and whether he might feel that the evidence collected by the FIA so far leaves Renault needing to construct a better case than the one they seem to have right now.

The key issue in the forthcoming case, of course, is that of why Nelson crashed. Flavio Briatore says there was a pre-race meeting but deliberate crashing was not discussed, according to the information dribbled into the public domain so far. Pat Symonds, director of engineering, apparently stated deliberate crashing was discussed, and brought up by Piquet Jr. Piquet Jr says they told him to do it. It’s difficult to imagine Nelsinho having the brains to suggest it, especially since the fuel strategy needed to make it beneficial to his teammate would have to have been agreed the night before. Equally, though, it’s not so difficult to accept that he had the right credentials for the job. Is it, Flavio?

Q. Why do you think Nelson Piquet crashed deliberately?

FB: Nelson has crashed 17 times.

That’s taken from an Autosport Q&A, and it isn’t such an unreasonable point…

How Renault might have gone race-fixing

Adam — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:13:50 +0000

Might. For the love of all, remember that their accusers need not be telling the truth.

What we should be discussing is a mouthwatering weekend at Monza, with only five weekends left to settle a championship nobody wants to take ownership of, one in which almost the entire grid suddenly looks capable of causing a disturbance at the front.

We’re not.

This blog did not exist at the time of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, and there are those among the readership for whom Formula One may as well not have existed at that time, so let’s have a look at the bare facts of the weekend’s action.

Nelson Piquet Jr was knocked out of qualifying in the first session, a result that failed entirely to send shockwaves through the paddock. His team leader Fernando Alonso had been among the front-runners throughout free practice, comfortably eclipsing his teammate as usual, and was expected to be one of the main players in qualifying until his car broke down at the start of Q2. A coupling in the fuel system, designed to ensure a clean break with no fuel spillage should the car break apart in a heavy accident, had come adrift, leaving the engine without juice and the Spaniard without power. As a consequence, the Renaults started line astern, 15th and 16th.

The two cars began the race with very different strategies. Piquet was fuelled to run a long first stint, scheduled to make a single pit stop. By plodding around at the back, he hoped to make up places by losing less time running heavy on the circuit than his opposition would lose by making an extra stop. Alonso, as aggressive as they come, was much lighter, running a two-stop strategy with a short first stint in the hope of making up ground early on.

Fernando’s start was perfect, aided somewhat by his completely ignoring the defined track on the inside of the first corner, but before long he found himself in a queue of cars held up behind the one-stopping Toyota of Jarno Trulli. Losing 3 seconds a lap to the cars directly ahead of the Trulli train and unable to make headway until the lap counter reached double figures, his afternoon looked shot. On lap 12, Alonso pitted.

On lap 14, Piquet did this:

Since his crash took place at one of the few places on the track not easily accessible to the recovery cranes, the safety car was called upon to neutralise the race while the mess was cleared. Last season’s safety car rules required the entire field to be bunched up and ordered to Race Control’s satisfaction before the pit lane was made available for use, which was all kinds of wonderful for Alonso. Before anyone ahead could call into the pits, the rules stipulated that he’d have to catch them up, this giving him the pleasure of watching them disappear from view before reappearing 20 seconds later in his mirrors.

Once the field had sorted itself out, the Ferrari mechanics had played out a comic epic in the pitlane involving chasing Felipe Massa’s car and half a fuel rig down the road and Trulli had finally pitted, Fernando found himself leading. In a car quick enough to stay there, he knew how to make sure it did, with the result that at the end of lap 61, Alonso did this:

So far, so what? The safety car had won Alonso the race, his teammate happened to have been the man who caused it, but a Piquet crash was hardly unexpected and anyway, at least he’d be keeping his drive for 2009 after that, ha ha ha. The circus moved on to Japan, where Alonso won again in a demonstration of what sheer brilliance can drag from an ordinary racing car, everyone went back to concentrating on the Hamilton vs Massa battle for the world title, and that was that.

Last month, Nelson Piquet Jr was fired. He made a lot of dark noises, covered in this blog’s July and August archives, about strange occurrences and happenings beyond his comprehension, orchestrated by his ‘executioner’ Flavio Briatore, but his interviews appeared to be no more than the bitter rantings of a man whose limits had been exposed at the highest level. Certainly, they were reported as such, right up until the FIA announced an investigation into events that Sunday in Singapore.

If Autosport’s sources are to be believed - and they’re generally solid enough – then the next couple of weeks will knock the early-season Liegate episode into a cocked hat. It is suggested that Piquet was instructed to crash just after Alonso’s first stop in a pre-race meeting with Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds, that the crash location was pre-selected precisely because it was difficult to access by crane and likely to trigger a safety car, and that Piquet Jr went along with it since his drive at Renault was by no means secure at the time.

We’ll receive no comment from Renault until their appearance before the World Motor Sport Council on race-fixing charges, scheduled for September 21st. Why would they do it? Why destroy one of their cars to give the other a chance of winning in a sport where human or mechanical trouble could throw it away in a second?

What follows is speculation and no more. It is one man with a netbook and some time on his hands. It is one man with no insider access or knowledge, it is not presented as fact, and I ask that you keep that in mind. That goes double for anyone more commonly addressed as Your Honour. All we can do here is speculate, and we’re hardly the only ones doing it, so try this for size - likely profit at relatively low cost, with plenty of incentive.

Renault had not won a race since the end of the 2006 season, and hadn’t looked likely to in the interim. For the first time in a long time, they had a competitive car at their disposal, and had been prevented by a freak mechanical failure from exploiting it. Alonso, the complete package as a driver, was publicly considering his future options and being aggressively courted by Honda. ING, the team’s title sponsor, were out in force throughout the Singapore weekend, keen to see their logos cross the line ahead of the field after two seasons spent waiting for success, and not likely to be that thrilled at the prospect of their cars sharing the eighth row of the grid.

Piquet was expendable. He was alongside Alonso on the grid, yes, but through circumstance rather than having equal pace. The prospects of his delivering a good result were slim to none, and without a guaranteed seat for 2009 he’d be almost certain to ask how high if instructed to jump. The damage done when car met barrier would have run into high five figures at least; nothing when compared to the millions on offer for recording a good finish in the constructors championship. It’s also worth considering, while we’re thinking of money, that Piquet didn’t have to make quite such a thorough job of having an accident; a spin and stall in the same area would have had the same effect on the race, and perhaps Renault were expecting something more like that and less like the wreck he gave them.

The odds of being found out? Long. We’d grown accustomed to race fixing the Ferrari way – “Is your name Michael? No? Then get out of Michael’s way, Rubens…” – and quite used to the idea that results could be manipulated blatantly, right before our eyes. Nelson Piquet Jr having an accident was not newsworthy, and if the circumstances of that crash were peculiar – nobody else spun all weekend at turn 17, scene of Piquet’s wreck, and he didn’t appear to make any great effort to recover the spin – they could easily be written off as Nelson being Nelson. Alonso benefitting from Piquet crashing would surely be viewed as nothing more than a fortunate happenstance, the lucky dip that saw Fernando’s name picked from the hat when a crash a few laps later would have ruined his race completely. Benefit he surely would too, since the cars were generally reliable, earlier glitch notwithstanding, and the driver not prone to lapses in concentration.

It was viewed as just that. Had the Piquets not gone to the FIA, it would have remained so. What’s in it for them is harder to fathom. Nelsinho’s performances have not set the world alight, and his stock in the F1 paddock isn’t high. He did appear certain of his own abilities, though, and keen to remain in the sport next year, so what could he gain through tarnishing his own reputation by associating himself with a scandal such as this? Is it already clear that nobody wishes to take up his services for 2010? Are the rumours linking his father to a takeover of BMW true, and is his seat guaranteed? Has he left himself open to sanctions should it be ruled that he was integral to the success of any Renault plot, and if so will he still have a racing licence this time next month?

All of the above is based on one giant assumption; that Autosport’s sources are trustworthy and correct. Makes sense, though, doesn’t it?

Listen all y’all, it’s a sabotage

Adam — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:02:09 +0000

From the freshly-released full Court Of Appeal judgement allowing Renault to race this weekend, a chunk of the FIA’s decision to ban Renault from the European Grand Prix:

The contested decision further states that the Competitor knowingly released car no. 7 from the pit stop position without one of the retaining devices for the wheel-nuts being securely in position, this being an indication that the wheel itself may not have been properly secured.

From Renault’s appeal, detailed in the same document:

The Appellant contends that the fact that it had no motive for or interest in allowing its car to leave the pit lane with, in effect, three wheels, constitutes additional evidence of the fact that the infringement was committed unknowingly.

There is, in other words, no advantage to be gained in letting your car leave the pits in the knowledge that a wheel will probably fall off. You might very well ask why it is that a competitor should have to point that out to the governing body, and I might very well say I’ve got no idea.

Note also that the organisers of the upcoming race attempted to have themselves classes as competitors in order to lodge an appeal against their golden boy Alonso’s exclusion. Again, there is no suggestion at all that the FIA would have let the ban stand if the race was anywhere except Spain, nor that the organisers would be up a famous creek without Fernando’s presence.

One of the stewards involved in Renault’s original banning is in fact a racer himself, Mohammed bin Sulayem. Those with long memories, and those who’ve recently read back through the early stages of this blog’s life, may recall what happened the last time Mohammed and Renault were involved with each other. Here’s a refresher:

Perhaps they said something to upset him afterwards.

A friend of the blog speaks

Adam — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:57:02 +0000

Hoo, boy.

It would appear that while not quite having his old man’s talent, Nelsinho Piquet has inherited his father’s unfortunate refusal to accept that sometimes, it really is time to shut up.