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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 6, 2009 17:36:01 GMT
It's interesting, Renault are facing race-fixing charges concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix!  Read all about it hereIt'll be interesting to see what comes of this... Personally, though, I think they're clean. It's probably just being engineered somehow by some guy who's unhappy that MClaren were the last team to have a big scandal (and probably the biggest so far in F1 history). Who knows? Maybe it's some Brit trying to give the French a bad name, since right now the "spotlight" (i.e. whenever somebody mentions F1 scandals) is on them... ;D  What do you think? |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Sept 6, 2009 19:22:29 GMT
Sounds beyond crazy, to me. Who in their right mind is going to deliberately crash at those speeds? For all the safety precautions, it'd be dicey to say the least.
I'd believe a lot when it came to F1, because of all the money involved, but they#d need serious proof to convince me of this.
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 8, 2009 5:37:18 GMT
Sounds beyond crazy, to me. Who in their right mind is going to deliberately crash at those speeds? For all the safety precautions, it'd be dicey to say the least. I'd believe a lot when it came to F1, because of all the money involved, but they#d need serious proof to convince me of this. Yeah, if Renault fixed a crash, they'd have to have told Piquet: "You could end up like Senna." And he'd have to have accepted that. Something like this is quite unrealistic. It is VERY probable that a technician moving from Ferrari to MClaren could've leaked technical information concerning the design of the car, but this? Almost certainly false allegations. |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Sept 8, 2009 11:54:56 GMT
Agreed, Dragon. There's a huge difference between risking the possibility of death in a high octane sport that wins you a boatload of money and essentially being a crash test dummy at those kinds of speeds.
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 10, 2009 18:25:45 GMT
The hearing will be on the 21st, we'll see what happens... Here's what Alonso had to saySame viewpoint we have (and same viewpoint just about anybody would have in this case) |
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Post by The Sonar Chicken on Sept 11, 2009 10:43:26 GMT
Well, IF there is some cheating going on... you can be sure someone's going to get sued. ;D By the gov, of course. |
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 11, 2009 17:49:36 GMT
Well, IF there is some cheating going on... you can be sure someone's going to get sued. ;D By the gov, of course. LOL!  Actually, the Piquets ARE getting sued, but not by the Government |
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Post by Hildor on Sept 12, 2009 20:22:25 GMT
Not at all, it's quite difficult to die or to get injured in a F1 crash these days. Safety has improved enormously. And I can imagine that IF Renault wanted Piquet to crash, poor Nelson would have acted like it. The fella hasn't really put down any results troughout his F1 career and he should be fearing for his contract all the time. So it could be very likely that if asked, he would try to create a shunt because his team told him to do so. That's the way things go in that sport. Well...as long as the Signapore Grand Prix remains as cool as it was in 2008 (at night ) I'm already happy ^^ *EDIT: You also have to calculate into the equation that a safety car situation is easily attained on a street circuit like Singapore. A safety car will come out on situations where it's too dangerous to let the race cars decide their own speed. For example when a car stands still on (a part of) the circuit. One wheel or a spoiler on the track is enough to let the safety car come out. And a little shunt on a street circuit, with fewer and shorter run off area's (still very safe though), is enough to create such a situation. So IF it all happened because of a Renault order, then I can easily understand that poor Nelsinho would have obeyed: it's safe (yes it is!), it's fairly easy on a street circuit and he was fearing for his contract.
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 15, 2009 8:43:22 GMT
Not at all, it's quite difficult to die or to get injured in a F1 crash these days. Safety has improved enormously. And I can imagine that IF Renault wanted Piquet to crash, poor Nelson would have acted like it. The fella hasn't really put down any results troughout his F1 career and he should be fearing for his contract all the time. So it could be very likely that if asked, he would try to create a shunt because his team told him to do so. That's the way things go in that sport. Well...as long as the Signapore Grand Prix remains as cool as it was in 2008 (at night ) I'm already happy ^^ *EDIT: You also have to calculate into the equation that a safety car situation is easily attained on a street circuit like Singapore. A safety car will come out on situations where it's too dangerous to let the race cars decide their own speed. For example when a car stands still on (a part of) the circuit. One wheel or a spoiler on the track is enough to let the safety car come out. And a little shunt on a street circuit, with fewer and shorter run off area's (still very safe though), is enough to create such a situation. So IF it all happened because of a Renault order, then I can easily understand that poor Nelsinho would have obeyed: it's safe (yes it is!), it's fairly easy on a street circuit and he was fearing for his contract. I agree that it's definitely harder for people to die nowadays than it was 16 years ago, but nevertheless it's still possible. Remember what happened to Massa? He definitely would've died if he didn't have his helmet! Or even what happened to Kovalainen at last year's Spanish Grand Prix, when his car smashed into the tire wall! He could've died! F1 is still not 100% safe, and I honestly don't think any team would dare take that kind of risk. Remember, Senna died in the Monaco Grand Prix, which is also a street race. Granted, it was 16 years ago, but people can still die racing F1 cars. We'll see what happens, but I'm pretty sure Renault are innocent. Here's some of the most recent developments in this matter. |
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Post by Hildor on Sept 15, 2009 14:16:18 GMT
I agree that it's definitely harder for people to die nowadays than it was 16 years ago, but nevertheless it's still possible. Remember what happened to Massa? He definitely would've died if he didn't have his helmet! Or even what happened to Kovalainen at last year's Spanish Grand Prix, when his car smashed into the tire wall! He could've died! F1 is still not 100% safe, and I honestly don't think any team would dare take that kind of risk. Remember, Senna died in the Monaco Grand Prix, which is also a street race. Granted, it was 16 years ago, but people can still die racing F1 cars. Well Massa's case was something completely different than a real crash. Something hitting your head is another sort of risk that exists only in open cockpit racing. Yes he could have died because of that, but it has nothing to do with actually crashing into something Wowowowowow wait...Senna didn't die in Monaco (you almost brought an F1 fan into a rage with saying that (joke )). Senna died in 1994 in San Marino when he crashed directly, full throtlle into a concrete barrier. This was because his car had failed him. The difference between contemporary F1 cars ánd circuits and those from 15 years ago is almost unimaginable. Remember when Robert Kubica in the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix? He smashed almost directly into a barrier and got out without a scratch. If he would have been in Senna's car, he would've been dead. But he wasn't, because modern cars can handle such smashes. The drivers are sitting in a (almost) indestructible monocoque that's part of the car. Several more cars have crashed like this since then and all the drivers got out without any harm, apart from being shocked for a few minutes. Same with Kovalainen's crash you mentioned. Yes it was a huge impact, but he got out unhurt. But let's see how and where Nelson Piquet crashed in Singapore. That is not a life threatening crash at all. That's pressing your throttle a bit too deep, spinning out of control, smashing your back into the barrier and parking your car on the track (which is easy on that street circuit as I pointed out). Yes it was a hard crash and a dangerous one, but not a life threatening one. Nelson could be wrong and Renault innocent. But if the story is true, I could very well believe it either. Trust me when I say: it's near impossible to die in a proper F1 crash these days. Don't get me wrong though. I am doing my very best here to point out that it's difficult to die in a F1 crash. But if Piquet did crash intently, I am nowhere near saying that it's okay what it did. Motor racing is dangerous. No matter how advanced the safety technology is, any crash is dangerous and should be avoided. I was just trying to fix your and Elliot's image of how dangerous Piquet's crash was |
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 15, 2009 17:10:58 GMT
Ah, I see... Thanks a lot Hildor! You ALSO corrected my false information concerning Senna's death. I guess we'll see what happens! Who knows, who knows.... |
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 16, 2009 12:13:01 GMT
Well, well, well... apparently, Hildor was right! By Golly and Folly, what was old Flavio Briatore thinking? To put it as one guy ( &rea) who commented on the Yahoo! article did (I share his/her opinion): "I think I'm more horrified over the concept that they would ask Piquet to put himself in danger by intentionally crashing. The idea that teams are always looking for some sort of edge is not news and we know that when they are frustrated, the ideas lose integrity, but to ask him to wreck shows a complete disregard for his safety. And then the concept of his employability (er, make that UN-employability) when all he did was the ultimate 'take one for the team' stunt then talk about it when the team left him go unceremoniously is ridiculous. How many other drivers would agree to such a risky endeavor? I hope Nelsinho is NOT blackballed for talking about something that was both dangerous and unethical. And I hope Renault is really going to have to answer for it. And I hope to heck Fernando Alonso IS going to Ferrari (and I'm not even a Ferrari fan), but he deserves support from an organization that won't crash his teammate just to get him a win (or whatever their true purpose was)." But it isn't over yet, we have to wait for the 21st of September to find that out! We'll see how it goes, but with Briatore stepping down, this probably means goodbye Renault...  Of course, if you read the other comments, you'll notice that they mention somewhere that the transcript didn't say for him to crash. Supposedly all it said about that lap was he was to "try and pass Rubens..." But like I said, we're probably going to get to the bottom of this on the 21st. |
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Post by Hildor on Sept 16, 2009 12:26:22 GMT
Nooooooo not Flavio! F1 has just lost one of its major characters!
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 17, 2009 5:20:19 GMT
Nooooooo not Flavio! F1 has just lost one of it's major characters! Yeah, pity isn't it? *sigh* F1's getting full of scandals...  First Ron Dennis, now this... Who's next? |
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Post by Elliot Kane on Sept 17, 2009 13:40:38 GMT
They're not contesting the charge, apparently, so... Guilty as hell, presumably! I'm totally stunned! How irresponsible can you be? And for what? Fixing one race is never enough to guarantee anything in F1. So pointless...
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Post by Hildor on Sept 17, 2009 15:33:08 GMT
A lot, a HUGE LOT of sponsor money, I'm afraid, Elliot...
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Post by Elliot Kane on Sept 17, 2009 16:09:40 GMT
Ah. Hope is money. There is that...
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Post by Hildor on Sept 17, 2009 19:41:52 GMT
Nooooooo not Flavio! F1 has just lost one of it's major characters! Yeah, pity isn't it? *sigh* F1's getting full of scandals... First Ron Dennis, now this... Who's next? On the more positive side: Lotus is coming back A legend left and a legend returns then ^^ |
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Post by twoheadedragon on Sept 19, 2009 11:42:17 GMT
Yeah, pity isn't it? *sigh* F1's getting full of scandals... First Ron Dennis, now this... Who's next? On the more positive side: Lotus is coming back A legend left and a legend returns then ^^ Yes, true.  I just hope Renault don't get "the Ax," but they might. Who knows, maybe FIA will rule that as long as the main culprit behind this atrocity leaves, the team can stay. At least that's what I'm hoping... |
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Post by Hildor on Sept 19, 2009 20:20:26 GMT
Yes, I'm almost 100% sure that that will happen. No worries for the Renault team staying.
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Actually, the Piquets ARE getting sued, 
First Ron Dennis, now this... Who's next? 
I just hope Renault don't get "the Ax," but they might. Who knows, maybe FIA will rule that as long as the main culprit behind this atrocity leaves, the team can stay. At least that's what I'm hoping...