The sudden resignation of Oliver Oakes from Alpine has thrust Flavio Briatore, previously the team’s executive consultant, into direct charge of a Formula 1 team once again.
Briatore returned to the team in the middle of last season, 15 years on from his ousting as a result of the notorious Crashgate scandal, arguably Formula 1’s greatest controversy. While he was team principal of Renault, Briatore, along with technical director Pat Symonds, was found to have orchestrated a deliberate crash.
The FIA attempted to ban the pair from participating in F1. But the bans were overturned, and now Briatore is running a team again, while Symonds is a consultant to F1’s new team which will arrive next year.
Should either still be involved in F1? Or has enough time passed for even a controversy of this magnitude to be forgotten?
Briatore and Symonds stepped down from their roles at Renault on September 16th, 2009. At the same time Renault announced it would not contest the FIA’s charge that it arranged for one of its drivers, Nelson Piquet Jnr, to crash his car early in the previous year’s Singapore Grand Prix so that its other driver, Fernando Alonso, could win the race.
Five days later the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council issued its judgement on the case, choosing not to punish Renault but banning Briatore indefinitely and Symonds for five years. It did this by announcing it would not sanction any event they participated in nor any driver they managed during that time. It was one of the last major decisions taken by the FIA under Max Mosley before Jean Todt was elected as his successor the following month.
The FIA ruled Briatore’s more severe punishment was justified “not only [due] to the severity of the breach in which Mr Briatore was complicit but also to his actions in continuing to deny his participation in the breach despite all the evidence.” However in Symonds’ case it took into account his “admission that he took part in the conspiracy; and […] his communication to the meeting of the WMSC that it was to his ‘eternal regret and shame’ that he participated in the conspiracy.”
But the punishments did not stick. In January the following year Briatore took the case to France’s high court, the Tribunal de Grande Instance, which ruled “the sanction was illegal.”
The FIA originally indicated it would appeal but in April 2010 it reached an out-of-court settlement with the pair. Under this, both agreed they would not participate in Formula 1 before the end of 2012; in effect, their sentences had been reduced to less than three years.
In a statement, Briatore said he agreed “to bear his share of responsibility in the Singapore events in his capacity as managing director of the Renault F1 Team, at the time they happened, without any admission of […] personal guilt in these events.”
The pair found responsible for Crashgate have ultimately returned to F1: Briatore last year and Symonds much earlier. He joined Marussia as a technical consultant in 2013, then moved to Williams, spent several years working for Formula 1 on its new car regulations and was hired by Cadillac last year as it prepared to join the grid next year.
Should either of the pair whose plan caused so much controversy and damage to the championship’s reputation ever have been allowed to return to it?
You say
Has enough time passed for Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds to be welcomed back into F1, or was Crashgate so serious they should be kept outside? Cast your votes below and have your say in the comments.
News
Loading …
