It has been 15 years since the infamous Crashgate in Singapore in 2008, yet it remains a tremendously relevant topic even today. Cyril Abiteboul, at that moment the director of commercial development at Renault in Formula 1, has revisited the scandal from his perspective, unfolding the truth in 2009, leading to Flavio Briatore‘s lifetime ban from the sport.
With a meticulously devised plan, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, then team principal and director of engineers at Renault, instructed Nelson Piquet Jr. to deliberately cause an incident at a strategic point on the circuit, triggering the deployment of the Safety Car and allowing Fernando Alonso to gain a significant advantage.
Alonso, thanks to his teammate’s orchestrated incident, went on to win that Grand Prix. However, what emerged a year later ignited one of the fiercest controversies in Formula 1 history.
Fifteen years after the incident, Cyril Abiteboul wanted to recount what happened from his perspective: “It was a moment when one had to take responsibility,” the Frenchman states on the Dans La Boîte À Gants podcast.
“Flavio and Pat were the minds of this operation and were the only ones to fall. The rest of the team managed to survive, although in terms of reputation, it was the only time Renault made the front page of The New York Times. The question is whether this was really good publicity or not.”
The French engineer revealed that he knew nothing about the intentional nature of the incident until the day the scandal came to light in 2009: “At the time, I was a valid idiot. I had no idea what was happening.”
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“At the time, we thought it was fantastic, and life went on. Contracts had already been signed, but in the spring of 2009, when the story came to light, I understood what had happened, and I had to deal with legal issues. I coordinated the investigations with the lawyers.”
“We were in the midst of negotiations and had to discuss Piquet’s stay. That weekend in Singapore, he hit the wall, and Alonso had the right strategy, which ultimately handed him the victory. During that GP, we saw a lot of tension within the team.”
The scandal resurfaced this year, thanks to Felipe Massa, who embarked on a tough legal battle to overturn the outcome of the 2008 championship. According to the Brazilian, the Singapore GP proved decisive for the title, with Bernie Ecclestone himself revealing that he had covered it up despite being fully aware.
Source: f1ingenerale
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