Grand Prix Rejects

It´s a bad ending for this thread. Shall we rename it?

Renault must have conducted their own 'mini-investigation' and rapidly decided they were guilty, even if it is only on appearance. They then decided as a large corporation they cannot take that kind of heat and decided to clean house. I can't see any other reason to take such drastic measures. Most companies would stand behind their representatives until the judgements were handed down, then take action. To do so before the hearing points to the open-closed nature of what really took place.

I guess this is what is meant by "Own goal"?

Now, what team will jump at the chance to hire young Nelson?!

Symonds 25 years in that team...Briatore 20...

And they're out like that. Pretty drastic, and shows just how big this is. Piquet really opened a can of worms by going to the FIA. He may not be a driver, as Flav said, but he is clearly sly.

Wizzie wrote:I don't see a Renault F1 next year

I'm jumping into the heat and saying this pretty much guarantees Renault's going to be in F1 in 2010. As Captain Hammer has been pointing out for days now, they're purging the top people (effectively pruning the tree of the branches that can't be saved) and sticking to their guns. Is there a lot of people here that really believe only Briatore, Symmonds and Piquet knew about what had happened, especially after Piquet Sr was informed? Nah.

Renault decided to imitate, indeed, the post-lie-gate actions of McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh. There will be more talk of culture change after the commercial break...

Great between-race drama, again!

Looks like the Renault bloggers are quite gutted.

http://my.ing-renaultf1.com/en/blog/133 ... ml#comment

johnston21 wrote:Looks like the Renault bloggers are quite gutted.

http://my.ing-renaultf1.com/en/blog/133 ... ml#comment

That's hilarious, the word 'fanboy' is overused on the internet these days, but really, some of the commenters are deluded in their support of Flavio. Flavio, of all people. How big a Renault fan would you have to be?

This year all serious contenders for "Reject Of the Year" are making much stronger bids than in all previous years since the inception of the award.

With Ron Dennis gone from "lie-gate", Mario Theissen gone from BMW retiring from F1 and Flavio Briatore now gone from "crash-gate", the only remaining principals of FOTA are Luca Di Montezemolo of Ferrari and John Howett of Toyota.

I can only hope that the team formerly known as Toleman and Benetton survives this confusion and remains in the championship.

Important question: if by chance FIA disconsiders all of Piquet Jr's results will he be eligible for a F1 Reject page?
Or will he only get a profile in the "You Lucky Bastard Section"?

This is Renault covering their butts, I'd be willing to bet that Bernie or Max told them to serve up Flav and co on a sliver platter and these "voluntary" resignations are only a way of handing them to the FIA without admitting any culpability themselves.

That being said i'm glad to see Flavio the terrible get his walking papers it's about time that somebody held his feet to the fire for playing games with his drivers and the rulebook.

Definitely out of the blue for me. I had figured Renault would wait until after the hearing to do any cleaning. Of course what does this do for Renault's competitiveness next year? Briatore might have been an oaf, but Symonds was highly regarded. With the Renault already a tank this year, how competitive can their 2010 car be, assuming they stay that is?

Also if Nelson Piquet Jr. brought down Flav, does that say something about Flav's lack of experience?

LionZoo wrote:Also if Nelson Piquet Jr. brought down Flav, does that say something about Flav's lack of experience?

I think Flavio didn't expect such a suicidal move from the Piquets. Because Nelsinho's career is dead now, he can only aspire to become a pay driver for poor reject teams.

muttley wrote:

LionZoo wrote:I think Flavio didn't expect such a suicidal move from the Piquets. Because Nelsinho's career is dead now, he can only aspire to become a pay driver for poor reject teams.

He didn't need to do anymore to get to that point in his career - his drving was enough!

Alain Prost to make another comeback?

Maybe he could give Tomas Enge another shot at escaping Rejectdom!

I think there has been a massive point missed in discussion so far. The ALONSO effect...

2 consecutive team principles in 3 seasons, I think Max has knobbled him some how (maybe Freddo was at one of his parties) and is using him as a tool to carry out his evil doings. Seriously if he's off to Ferrari next season Luca had better watch his back.

Coincidece, I think not.

Well, this makes it official. Flav was a S.O.B. to tell him to crash (which he probably would have done on his own) but Nelson Jr. is an idiot to do it. I don't car how much he wanted to keep his ride, to risk his life to do so is insane. Spin it, stall it and say that you can't start it would just be unfair play, but smashing into the barrier at anything more than a crawl is just beyond stupid. This should earn him a special Reject honour.

Fandangio wrote:I think there has been a massive point missed in discussion so far. The ALONSO effect...

2 consecutive team principles in 3 seasons, I think Max has knobbled him some how (maybe Freddo was at one of his parties) and is using him as a tool to carry out his evil doings. Seriously if he's off to Ferrari next season Luca had better watch his back.

Coincidece, I think not.

And now I thought you were talking about Luca Badoer... The reverse of what happened to someone else a while back...

kowalski wrote:my favorite part is

my every f****** disgrace

- i'm going to be using that at every opertunity...

infact, i have a meeting later today and it will be my challenge to sneek it into the conversation!


-Rejects unite! - make it your challenge for today

Is it even correct English?
Sorry for the double-post, by the way...

Waris wrote:
Is it even correct English?

No, it's horrificly bad english, that doesn't make any sense, other than he was obviously pissed off

Valrys wrote:

Waris wrote:
Is it even correct English?

No, it's horrificly bad english, that doesn't make any sense, other than he was obviously pissed off

I don't think Flav needs to be pissed off to speak in horrifically bad English!
This post from SniffPetrol on Twitter amused me earlier:

"We say 'hat'. He say 'Is like, is head, is like super sexy, you know, is brim, or is peak. Is all these thing. F***"

What the hell is going on at Renault? Why are the Piquets being A*******? How could one of Jamie and Enoch's conspiracy theories get this out of hand? How can Flav leave? He's been the face of Benetton/Renault for years? Now we can't blame Ron, Flav, Eddie Jordan or Paul Stoddard for anything. Who wants to listen to Luca and Norbert Haug all day? These questions must be answered or F1 will spontaneously combust!

tristan1117 wrote:Who wants to listen to Luca and Norbert Haug all day?

Sweet lord...

I agree with the Alonso conspiracy theory on top of this conspiracy theory. Alonso is at McLaren, and spy-gate happens. He hopes to go to Ferrari (i.e. what Bernie and the FIA want more than anything) but can't. Now Alonso at Renault, Piquet told be the FIA to crash, they frame Renault, and Alonso goes to Ferrari and everyone makes millions of pesetas (or euros rather).

muttley wrote:

LionZoo wrote:Also if Nelson Piquet Jr. brought down Flav, does that say something about Flav's lack of experience?

I think Flavio didn't expect such a suicidal move from the Piquets. Because Nelsinho's career is dead now, he can only aspire to become a pay driver for poor reject teams.

Piquet's career was on the rocks anyway. Look at this way, there's a number of experienced drivers on the move like Kubica, Barrichello, as well as people like Sato and de la Rosa probably looking for a way back in. Not to mention rookies like Carroll, Petrov, Hulkenberg etc. who'd probably be viewed as not being likely to do much worse than Nelsinho, and wouldn't require a salary of $1m that Flavio said he was paying Nelsinho in his interview with the FIA. Not a huge incentive for anyone to take him on even before all this.

Either Nelsinho worked that out, or he really doesn't like Briatore...

Sorry to butt into this discussion, I'll let you finish, but I just wanted to say Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time...of ALL TIME...

And while we're on the subject of total non-sequiters, did you also know that glass is actually a liquid?

Yannick wrote:This year all serious contenders for "Reject Of the Year" are making much stronger bids than in all previous years since the inception of the award.

We should consider that instead of Reject of the Year, this is the Year of the Reject

Renault will still exist. Flavio is gone. I'm happy with the result.

I still wonder how knowledgeable/complicit Alonso was in this whole episode? Surely he knew something was afoot at least...

As the wonderful Bruno Mantovani notes:


I'm completely stunned that Renault just rolled over so quickly and have moved so fast to boot Briatore and Symonds. On the flipside, I'm not surprised that they've done the deed to prune the branches and it clearly is Renault trying to distance themselves from the episode a la McLaren with Ron Dennis and Dave Ryan earlier in the year.

Remember that Renault has an enormous stake in FIA-sanctioned championships and their involvement extends far beyond F1 into GP2, Formula Renault, Clio Cup etc. They had to do this to avoid further sanction and keep what little is left of the brand reputation intact.

A completely disgraceful episode in the history of F1 IMO and a terrible shame for the sport and its fans.

How many times do the teams, team principals, team personnel, drivers, engine manufacturers and their boards, race stewards, tyre suppliers, circuit designers (and the circuits themselves), FIA president - keep inserting names/objects/entities as you see fit - have to keep shooting themselves in the foot and shooting Formula 1's foot before sanity is finally achieved?

I think they did it to make the Renault look good and stop Alonso from leaving in disgust at the end of 2008.

Now he'll leave in disgust at the end of 2009...

I was about to post a long as life explanation of my thoughs, but I know nobody would read it. So, I'll put a few thoughts (for wich I don't have too much hopes neither, but alas! I've already paid $ 0.00 for the forum access and they give no refund):

1) If everyone is granted inmunity (I don't know if stills holds true to Simonds, since he also seems gone), then it's the worst disguising of a witch hunt into justice ever.

2) Lets suppose you are a team manager, for a team that is no less one of the bigest constructors in the world with a serious presence in all forms of motorsport, would you... leave any chance to a young and proved inmatured guy as Piquet junior to keep a secret that could destroy an entire manufacturer's reputation (and your career, in the middle, forever)? I think every person with more than 25 years old, and a mid-class job, would naturally chose any other way prior to this one.

2b) Ok, you are the dumbest man on earth: Just trust in the childish Piquet & Piquiet Senior (which is no example of protocol, BTW)... Would you trust in Alonso then? For god sake! This guy axed Mclaren people for giving him superior (via spying) equipement... which is the difference with fixing your race up? As soon as the tables turns on him you will be again before the excecution fire squad!

3) I still believe that the whole plan is totally impossible from the practical point, or if it is, it's so impractical that only could be a matter of an opportunity shot, case in wich they would had needed radio-com or boards, wich are missing here. Reputedly, they (the three of them, with the happy assumption that Alonso walks gracefully in life not knowing that he is winning beause of race fixing) a) Set up the wholw thing in, lets say, 15 minutes. b) Assumed that lap 14 was the best chance of all to crash in a GP that had 3/4 of a race to go. c) haven't taken care of details (already metioned here to boredom) as if a driver could go suddenly in another strategy, the not-so-automatic deployment of safety-car, etc... the more posible outcome should have been a 4th place, or so. Wich doens't deserves running into the risks of cheating.


The only con is that, Piquet crash, seen on replay, seems very stupid, but that could be easily the guy.

F1 Chronicles: A Decade of Shame...

SpeedTV is reporting that Dave Richards is possibly up for Flav's Old Job, and was seen at the Company's Enstone Factory today. they are also postulating that he would take over as boss and then within the next few years pull a Brawn and buyout the team and thusly ProDrive would FINALLY make it onto the Grid.......

This is just ridiculous.....

didn't Piquet crash because his rear-wing failed?.......I've seen 2 replays before asking this and both show a Broken Rear wing.....

Fitch wrote:SpeedTV is reporting that Dave Richards is possibly up for Flav's Old Job, and was seen at the Company's Enstone Factory today. they are also postulating that he would take over as boss and then within the next few years pull a Brawn and buyout the team and thusly ProDrive would FINALLY make it onto the Grid.......

This is just ridiculous.....

didn't Piquet crash because his rear-wing failed?.......I've seen 2 replays before asking this and both show a Broken Rear wing.....

They could be Renault Prodrive, i.e. BMW Sauber.

Yeah, but he wants Mercedes engines so that he can put Mercedes engines in Aston Martin road cars.

Captain Hammer wrote:Yeah, but he wants Mercedes engines so that he can put Mercedes engines in Aston Martin road cars.

Or he could get Renault engines in it.

Fitch wrote:Didn't Piquet crash because his rear-wing failed?.......I've seen 2 replays before asking this and both show a Broken Rear wing.....

Even if he did have a damaged wing, the telemetry clearly shows Piquet applying 100% throttle while the rear wheels (and the car) are spinning, and keeping it applied until after the impact with the wall. The crash was deliberate, the only thing at question is who did/said/knew what while it was being planned.

Captain Hammer wrote:Yeah, but he wants Mercedes engines so that he can put Mercedes engines in Aston Martin road cars.

He doesn't need F1 for that. The new, Aston-owned and hideous Lagonda is essentially a not less hideous Mercedes GL underneath. And there's been a lot of talk of Aston buying Mercedes' hybrid systems. Sure, it's a developing partnership, but I really would rather not read too much the importance it has in F1. Mercedes has a lot in its plate right now.

Eddie Irvine thinks there's been an overreaction:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 260479.stm

He calls the incident 'slightly on the wrong side of the cheating thing', but goes on to say that it's normal for teams to do anything to win. Of course, Eddie Irvine being a jumped-up little prat with an elevated view of his own self-importance, maybe we shouldn't take his opinion too seriously.

fjackdaw wrote:And while we're on the subject of total non-sequiters, did you also know that glass is actually a liquid?

is it bollox...

you just try drinking it.

All the great circuits have names for straights and corners that evoke the glorious history of the event and those that raced there. Being a new track, Singapore's a bit lacking in this area but I think we can help this with an unnoffical renaming of the now-legendary Turn 17. Options include 'Piquet's End', 'Curva Briatore', or 'Crollo Cancello' (an extremely bastardized rendition of 'Crashgate' in Italian).