Renault take legal action over Piquet ‘crash’ claim

On the eve of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the world of Formula One has been thrown into chaos yet again as the Renault race-fixing scandal escalated dramatically. The French team has announced it is launching legal action against its former driver Nelson Piquet Jnr and his father, F1 legend Nelson Piquet, accusing them of blackmail.

Renault's claims relate to "the making of false allegations and a related attempt to blackmail the team into allowing Piquet Jr to drive for the remainder of the 2009 season".

The constructor's retaliation comes after Piquet Jnr alleged he had been ordered to crash out of a Grand Prix last year. In a witness statement leaked yesterday, the Brazilian driver claimed that his Renault bosses - team chief Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds - told him to crash at last year's Singapore Grand Prix, to allow his team-mate Fernando Alonso to win the race.

Because Piquet feared for his career prospects - Briatore had refused to say whether his contract would be renewed for the next racing year - he agreed to do it and Alonso duly won the race.

"I was asked by... Briatore, who is both my manager and the Team Principal of the ING Renault F1 Team, and by... Symonds, the technical director of the Renault F1 Team, to deliberately crash my car in order to positively influence the performance," Piquet's statement read.

"I agreed to this proposal and caused my car to hit a wall and crash during lap thirteen/fourteen of the race. The proposal to deliberately cause an accident was made to me shortly before the race took place."

Piquet said he was given precise instructions by Symonds as to where he should spin off into the wall of the Singapore street track in order to create enough damage to necessitate the 'safety car' being deployed.

The statement by Piquet - made shortly after he was fired by Briatore at the end of July, supposedly for having won too few points in the F1 season so far - is central to the case against Renault due to be heard by the FIA in Paris on September 21. Renault, Briatore, Symonds and Piquet all face being kicked out of the sport and fined millions.

Alonso claims in the Daily Mirror today that he knew nothing about the race fix and "wouldn't want to be involved in a sport if it was rigged".

Other F1 drivers interviewed by the media have expressed shock. British driver Jenson Button said: "I can't imagine a driver doing that. I can't ever imagine a situation where I'd do that, even as a young driver but then I can't believe anybody would ask me that."

His Brawn team-mate Rubens Barrichello said: "It's very sad if it's true, The only thing I can see is that someone wants Briatore's head."

Briatore, an Italian mulit-millionaire who also co-owns the London football club Queens Park Rangers with F1's Bernie Ecclestone, has now forcefully responded to the allegations. Earlier this month, after rumours of a race fix first emerged, Ecclestone told the British press that Briatore had assured him he was unaware of any wrongdoing in Singapore.