British newspapers on Tuesday branded Renault’s punishment over the ”crashgate” affair lenient, and questioned whether commercial pressures played a part in the FIA’s decision.
Motor sport’s governing body, the FIA, on Monday handed the Renault Formula One team a suspended ban from the sport for ordering its driver, Nelson Piquet Jnr, to crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
Renault, who have been involved in F1 since 1977, were in the dock for conspiring with Piquet Jnr to cause a deliberate crash to help the Brazilian’s teammate, Fernando Alonso, win the race.
Team boss Flavio Briatore was slapped with an ”unlimited” ban from the sport while chief engineer Pat Symonds was suspended for five years.
Under headlines such as ”Great Escape” and ”Anger as Renault gets easy ride”, newspapers said the soft punishment for Renault may have aimed at convincing it to remain in the sport at a time when its commitment was unclear.
”Certainly the expectation was that the team would escape a ban, but no one had foreseen quote how lenient the punishment would be,” motor racing correspondent Tom Cary said in the Daily Telegraph.
”Renault’s future in Formula One remains precarious and it is widely believed that the sentence may have been designed to help persuade the French manufacturer to stay in the sport,” he said.
The FIA was criticised for allowing the fear that Renault might leave to cloud its thinking when it handed the manufacturer the suspended ban after a hearing in Paris, according to the Times.
”I’m not surprised they’ve let Renault off,” British former Formula One world champion Damon Hill was quoted saying.
”It’s a crying shame for the sport,” he said.
”Formula One has to ask itself, is it just a very expensive form of entertainment or a proper sport?”
The Guardian pointed to the fact that McLaren was fined a massive $100-million in 2007 and stripped of points for their role in obtaining confidential information from rival Ferrari in the ”spygate” scandal.
The newspaper said, however, that McLaren suffered such a punishment largely because it refused to come clean over the affair.
Flamboyant Italian Briatore and Symonds both quit Renault ahead of Monday’s FIA hearing. Piquet, as whistleblower, was given immunity by FIA for his part in the conspiracy.
Renault’s ban is suspended until the end of the 2011 season and will only be activated if they are found guilty of a similar offence. — Sapa-AFP