Personally I think there is no place in any work environment for management that is prepared to endanger the lives of their employees on purpose. Anybody that thinks its acceptable to request their employees to deliberately endanger their lives, (over and above any natural risk inherent in the job), has no place in any position of authority.

If I had my way he'd be facing criminal proceedings, along with his crony that went a long with it.

Quote from dungbeetle :

So, sounds like the FIA were attempting to act on principle (or on a personal vendetta, according to Flavio) rather than in strict accordance with the rule book.

You'd have thought there was a line in the rule book somewhere saying "Thou shalt not conspire to crash thy car deliberately", wouldn't you?

Although obviously difficult to enforce due to the burden of proof, one assumes there is no such a rule, as proof wasn't even needed in this case; Renault confessed.

Renault did NOT confess! Renault simply chose not to contest the allegations, which is not the same thing as a confession.

The way I see it is that Renault chose not to raise a defence purely to save their own ass. Flav (and Pat) was scape-goated.

Keep in mind that the allegations were never proven. The evidence was never cross-examined by Renault, Flav, or Pat, and the hearings were not conducted by a legitimate judicial authority.

If the allegations were true, then I'd be disappointed that Flav was able to get away with his cheating. But whatever the facts, the case should have been handled properly. It wasn't. When freed from Renault's control, Flav took the matter to a higher authority and won. If the FIA had conducted themselves properly in the first place, then this would not have been necessary.

Quote from samjh :

Renault did NOT confess! Renault simply chose not to contest the allegations, which is not the same thing as a confession.

Pat Symonds' admission

"The FIA has released a letter written by Symonds, and addressed to the Council, which was read out during the meeting in mitigation.

Symonds wrote: 'I was the one who, when the idea was first suggested to me by Nelson Piquet Jr, should have dismissed it immediately.

'It is to my eternal regret and shame that I did not do so. I can only say that I did it out of a misguided devotion to my team, and not for any personal gain whatsoever."

Exactly. Renault didn't confess. Symonds did, after he left the team.

Quote from dungbeetle :

Pat Symonds' admission

"The FIA has released a letter written by Symonds, and addressed to the Council, which was read out during the meeting in mitigation.

Symonds wrote: 'I was the one who, when the idea was first suggested to me by Nelson Piquet Jr, should have dismissed it immediately.

'It is to my eternal regret and shame that I did not do so. I can only say that I did it out of a misguided devotion to my team, and not for any personal gain whatsoever."

Nope, still not a confession to what was alleged by the FIA.

Symonds merely expressed his regret that he didn't shoot the idea down when Piquet suggested it. But that wasn't the allegation made against him. The allegation was that Symonds and Briatore made the suggestion to Piquet and forced him to crash.

When one person states his or her version of the truth which doesn't agree with another's version of the truth, it is a contradiction, not a confession.

It might seem like I'm splitting hairs, and some people will find it frustrating. But when an entity is supposed to administer justice, it should do so fairly and thoroughly. It's about time the FIA's kangaroo court copped a dose of "epic fail". I would have preferred someone like Ron Dennis to take them on, but Flav will have to do.

Surely though it is a case off a little bit of evidence that proved that the crash was planned and no evidence to contest it. Now while I agree Renault chose not to contest it, no evidence was shown to due to this so surely the only ‘verdict’ the FIA could make would be that the allegations were true and therefore the people involved should be punished.

On a different note, I was reading in the paper today that Briatore is talking about suing the Piquet now that his ban has been overturned. I don’t see how this is possible though, the courts overturned his ban not the verdict that they cheated. So surely, based off the courts decision, Briatore is a cheater but can re-enter F1 if he so wishes.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Exactly. Renault didn't confess. Symonds did, after he left the team.

Quote from samjh :

... It might seem like I'm splitting hairs ...

lol

OK. One of the main protagonists who was part of the team at the time of the incident and was involved it it's inception, later confessed.

Seriously though, I thought the main reason for Flavio's appeal was simply that the FIA didn't have the power to issue him with a lifetime ban, whatever the verdict.

I haven't followed this a lot so maybe it's a stupid question but is there actually a rule that states you can't deliberately crash your own car? Don't get me wrong, it's cheating, it shouldn't happen and it deserved some sort of punishment but if there is no such rule, then there has always been "if it's not forbidden by the rules, it's allowed" mentality among F1 people.

EDIT: I suppose one of the rules would be "no team orders".

Quote from dungbeetle :

lol

OK. One of the main protagonists who was part of the team at the time of the incident and was involved it it's inception, later confessed.

Seriously though, I thought the main reason for Flavio's appeal was simply that the FIA didn't have the power to issue him with a lifetime ban, whatever the verdict.

Off the mark on both of your paragraphs.

Firstly, Symonds did not confess to the allegation. As I said before, he contradicted the FIA's version of the story. It wasn't a confession.

Secondly, the court's decision was based on two issues: whether the FIA had the authority to ban Flav and Pat, and the conflict of interest between the WMSC, Max Mosley, and Flav. The court found that the FIA didn't have the authority to ban Flav or Pat because they were not holders of an FIA license, and that the WMSC operated under a conflict of interest due to the prior history of conflict between Mosley and Flav.

To summarise: the FIA acted outside of its authority, and the WMSC was potentially corrupted by Mosley. Therefore, punishment revoked.

Quote from samjh :

the WMSC was potentially corrupted by Mosley. Therefore, punishment revoked.

mosley should be out on his ass too.

i really hate him and dont think the ban should of been over turned

Yeah, but you can't punish people on the grounds that you hate them.

Quote from Kalev EST :

Yeah, but you can't punish people on the grounds that you hate them.

which is exactly what Mosley did, but is now failed.

I don't give a crap about him.

Quote from samjh :

Off the mark on both of your paragraphs.

Firstly, Symonds did not confess to the allegation. As I said before, he contradicted the FIA's version of the story. It wasn't a confession.

Secondly, the court's decision was based on two issues: whether the FIA had the authority to ban Flav and Pat, and the conflict of interest between the WMSC, Max Mosley, and Flav. The court found that the FIA didn't have the authority to ban Flav or Pat because they were not holders of an FIA license, and that the WMSC operated under a conflict of interest due to the prior history of conflict between Mosley and Flav.

To summarise: the FIA acted outside of its authority, and the WMSC was potentially corrupted by Mosley. Therefore, punishment revoked.

So basically it was revoked because the FIA haven't got authority to give them a punishment, not becuase there not guilty.

The sentence should have been he was stuck with Naomi Campbell for the rest of his natural life, that cranky bitch would surely have beaten him to death at some point.

I think firstly the implication that it was dangerous and risking lives needs to be put into context, it's been woefully exagerated. Racing drivers are frequently able to minimise injury in accidents by taking appropriate action, so if the entire incident is an accident then it's well under control.

I hate to mention karts in an F1 thread for fear of Intrepidism, I know they're different beats and i'm not going to draw a direct comparison of crash damage or anything - but certainly there was times I was heading into a barrier at high speed and taken action to hit at an angle i'm less likely to get hurt at, sometimes even spinning through 180 deliberately. Now in terms of deliberately crashing i've had enough non-serious accidents to know how to recreate one if I ever wanted too - every race driver has.

Add to that that F1 are relatively safe, and in deciding upon an accident that's suiteable it becomes no more dangerous than a hollywood stunt.

With that out of the way and the context of the allegation in perspective - one purely of race fixing and not of endangering lives, I think we have to again put that into perspective, because if one thing has been shown over the last few years is that F1 is constantly cheating and we all know that all the teams do it - heck even most F1 manager games feature structured ways of doing it. It's a purely sporting offence, and i'd hazard a few dozen are committed each race weekend, and with that in mind I don't think a lifetime ban is warranted.

The only thing to change in recent years is closer press scrutiny.

As for Briatore himself, I don't like him when he's interviewed because I can't understand him, I gather he's not a very technical man and has been at odds with Max Mosley for years. The nazi hates Britaore and has publicly berrated him, and slammed him for suggesting things such as "Well if we want exciting racing lets start the grid backwards?" when actually Briatore raises a very good point there.

For upsetting Max Mosley for years, and being a constant thorn in his side, and for the ocassion very reasoned 'take one step back' idea he's had, I think it'll be a loss to F1. Because making Max Mosley's life untennable is way more important than sporting conduct, even though Mosley isn't FIA president next year - he'll still be about.

Getting rid of Mosley is a higher priority than getting rid of Briatore.

Agreed Becky. But I think the point was more that a deliberate crash puts spectators and track workers at risk ON PURPOSE, rather than on the simple basis that in motorsport, accidents happen.

Piquet himself was pretty much 100% safe in that crash, but flying wheels and shards or carbon debris (and trust me - carbon shards are SHARP!!!) can go in unplanned directions.

Doing it deliberately is rather different than it happening by accident.

Nobody may have been physically hurt by the accident but you can't allow people who do this to get off lightly, it'll only encourage others, and things may not work out so well another time.

Agree with above. I am all for looking back at things and not worrying about what mighthave been or what might of happened. However avoiding an accident (or no one getting injured when an accident happens) is alot different in my book to deliberatly crashing then claiming that no one was hurt so its alright. Pre-planning causes unneccesary risk.

What I don't understand though is with the McLaren with Ferrari information (spygate wasn't it?) only a few were supposidly involved in that compared to Renault crashgate. Now while having technical information is different to purposeful crashing the punishment vary so much.