Action as Swift as their Drivers

I've followed Formula One racing rather closely for quite a few years now and in that time I have long admired the fact that both drivers and their teams worked hard to get that little bit extra out of the car in order to beat their competition. Sure many will argue that in Formula One, teams with the most money (read that to mean Ferrari or McLaren-Mercedes for example) will have an unfair advantage in how they develop their cars simply because they can afford to spend more in testing and development than many other teams. In the years since I began watching there have been many attempts to bring a bit more 'equality' to the various teams in Formula One but still, to paraphrase George Orwell's "Animal Farm", some teams are more equal than others.

I bring this up in light of the scandal that has been more or less rocking the racing world for the past few weeks and that was the revelation that Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, senior leaders with Renault Racing, resigned from their posts with the team following allegations by their former driver Nelson Piquet Jr. that he was ordered to crash his car last year in Singapore to help his teammate Fernando Alsonso (who was in contention for the championship) to move up in the race order in Singapore. According to Piquet he did it for personal reasons; his contract with Renault was not confirmed for the next year and so he figured that by following orders he'd show that he was a team player and that he should be brought back for another year of racing. I suppose in his estimation that having some talent in racing and the fact that he is the son of a former Formula One driver (Nelson Piquet Sr. obviously) wasn't enough.

Now team orders are typically banned in the sport (and for those who don't know, team orders are basically telling your number 2 driver that even if they can win the race, they should yield... if possible... to the number 1 driver to ensure that the number 1 driver can get the maximum number of points for the win). However it's always been more of a wink and a nod understanding that team orders don't really exist although most people know that they do. Ferrari was notorious for having unwritten or unspoken team orders back when Michael Schumacher was still racing for the team. Most other teams probably practice it as well though it isn't as obvious. But the incident at Renault has suddenly rocketed the controversy to the forefront again.

As I said, this isn't the first scandal to rock the sport but certainly one that speaks volumes about the lengths to which some teams are willing to go in order to win a championship. Prior to this some of the largest scandals dealt with unfair technical advantages to the car (such as extra fuel or a more powerful engine) or other cases where technical knowledge of the competition was stolen and then used to take advantage of their defficiencies. In this case, a driver was asked to put his life in danger by purposely crashing his car in order to bring out the safety car which would allow Piquet's teammate (Fernando Alonso) the chance to come out and gain field position despite having a slower car. Indeed that's what happened and Alonso subsequently went on to win the race.

Once Piquet (who was let go by Renault shortly after the 2009 season began) came out with the news that he had been ordered to crash last year and that it wasn't an accident, the entire process seemed to take less time than even the longest of pitstops in Formula One. Both Flavio Briatore (pictured above) and Pat Symonds resigned but not only that, Symonds is suspended for at least five years from the sport and Briatore is suspended indefinitely for his actions. This also means that the drivers he manages (and he manages several with other teams) would also potentially have to leave the sport until they can find new managers. It seems a bit harsh to some but I think it's an appropriate action given the dangerous nature of the request that the team made of a driver. It wasn't as if they asked Piquet to feign engine failure on the track; he was told to crash his car severely enough that the safety car would be deployed.

Competition is a good thing but the fact that some would consider potential death to their driver as a means of winning a championship certainly puts things in perspective (at least for me). Is the need to win that strong that we'd potentially sacrifice someone's life in order to secure victory? Is this what the purpose of competition and sport is? I certainly don't think so and I certainly don't think this is the type of example that these teams should be setting. I think the action that was taken by FIA (the equivalent of the NFL in terms of Formula One racing) was proper. There is perhaps some sympathy for Briatore considering he has managed several championship teams and drivers and has led his team to victory but unfortunately the way in which it could have been done has left a very bad taste in people's mouths. I didn't think that this sport would need an asterisk next to the name of a driver to prove that they had won fair and square but I guess we do.