So had Argentina substituted Maradona after the hand of God would that have made everything alright? Had Greg Chappell resigned as captain of Australia following his instruction to his brother to bowl underarm made that alright?
It appears in F1 as long as those in the frontline have left then punishment for the crime of the team is unwarranted. Renault receiving only a two year suspended ban for ordering Nelson Piquet to crash in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, so that his team mate Fernando Alonso could win.
Simply because Piquet no longer drives for Renault and team boss Flavio Briatore and chief engineer Pat Symonds have left the team, they do not warrant being banned. In other words the brand is more important to F1 than the morals and race fixing.
Piquet was by all accounts the whistle blower admitted that he was told to crash so that Alonso who was 15th at the time and had made a pit stop to refuel early, would gain an advantage after the safety car came on the track. Other drivers had to make fuel stops and Alonso won his first race in a year.
As the whistle blower Piquet has avoided any sanction. If only Hansie Cronje had been treated in such a way, or even those accused but found not guilty of match fixing in football, Hans Segers, Bruce Grobellaar and John Fashnu.
The decision makes a mockery of F1 and those who run it. Briatore is banned for life. But as a man who was quoted as saying “The people in charge should be businessmen, as they are in Hollywood not ex-engineers. Nothing costs more, and delivers less entertainment, than hidden technology. And that’s what engineers love most of all,” he will not be crying. His interest in the sport had waned as he believed it failed to give entertainment. He said as early as 1994 All the team owners are orientated towards the technical side rather than the entertainment side, and this is a big fault. Every meeting that I go to, people are talking about pistons and suspensions. Nobody goes to a race to see that kind of thing… People come to see Schumacher and Senna racing each other.”
With the outcome of “Crashgate” as it has been dubbed the people running F1 have continued to harm the sport.
F1 is a complete waste of time these days, the drivers lack skill as it comes down to the electronics. How it can keep going with all the enviroinment issues is beyond me.