Flavio Briatore's Race-Fixing Scandal

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Sep 17th 2009 at 2:01PM

Millionaire playboy and Formula One head Flavio Briatore is the center of major controversy today. Briatore, famous as much for his freespending and modelizing ways as his racing career, has stepped down as the head of the Renault team. Briatore told the Daily Mirror that he made the move for the good of the team amid allegations of race-fixing. Both Briatore and the team's executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, left their posts after Renault refused to contest allegations that former Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. was asked to deliberately crash in last year's Singapore Grand Prix. His crash benefitted the team's other driver Fernando Alonso who went on to win the race.

Members of the Renault team are set to appear before the International Automobile Federation (FIA) in Paris on Monday and face the possibility of being expelled from competition. Now that Briatore and Symonds are no longer part of the team Renault may not be banned but will likely face a fine or some other action. Piquet has already testified that he was told by Briatore and Symonds when and where to crash .According to CNN, Renault's chief operating officer Patrick Peralta has said that Briatore and Symonds are solely responsible for the incident.

Tags: flavio briatore, FlavioBriatore, formula one, FormulaOne, renault

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Crimes and Misdemeanors

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

pauliscorsi Sep 20th 2009 6:19AM

I am not surprised ..... Why , not check out all other business , concerning this Guy ??? Not only cars ...... From rio de J - Brazil

kevin lynch Sep 20th 2009 10:13AM

...and 'arranging' races amongst "team" members in Formula racing is surprising how, exactly?

Lee Denbina Sep 20th 2009 11:49AM

Money motivates corrution - really? I had no idea!

Lee Denbina Sep 20th 2009 11:56AM

Typo - it should read "corruption". I became flustered with the new log-in business.

Jim Sep 20th 2009 3:08PM

It didnt just assist his teammate, it re-arranged the whole field and ultimately altered the outcome of the entire championship. And it wasn't a strategy decided during the race, it was all planned out BEFORE the race. They fueled one car specifically to be out front at the moment the teammate purposely crashed, thus forcing all the other cars to line up behind. And they planned the crash in the only place on the track that would knowingly line all the other cars behind because they couldn't clear wreckage off the track at that turn without stopping the race for everybody to line up behind their driver. This was not teammate assisting, this is pure 'race fixing'. F1 is serious business. This guy is not only getting kicked out of F1, hes going to be sued by several entitys with criminal proceedings very likely.