Renault race-fixing at Singapore 2008

[siskue2005]

I think the whole thing is a load of BS..

the whole thing was started cos of this
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/78195

Renault had improved the car by Singapore. Alonso lucked out when Piquet crashed, yes that's true..

However, he went on to win in Japan, without Piquet's "help".. So where's the story?

but there was Mr. Hamilton helping Alonso in the first corner

The whole thing is just a way for Piquet to get back at Flavio!

it could be, but we cannot stop by looking at one side....every other angle should be covered

[Motornic]

Point being guys: on face value the accusation looks plausible and shocking. But once you look at the detail it looks less and less like Renault could realistically have guessed on so many small factors which worked in their favour in the end. Some maybe.

The length of time the safety car was out for one, and whether any other car out there had taken a punt on a very long first-stint one-stop race.

So many of the finer details debated (with passion) here don't really matter so much when you think of it from a: what could Renault reasonably foresee and what could they influence during the race point of view.

Exactly.

Its just all so crazy, people making the evidence fit the crime. How did Renault know about the Red Bulls, Ferrari's misfortunes, or where FA would end up after the crash?

Autosport's Adam Cooper wrote this last year in the race review.....

In fact, Fernando did suffer a bit of bad luck at this point. The safety car came charging out right in front of him - in fact it almost collected Fisichella - so while everyone else was still able to run pretty quickly as the queue formed, he was trapped.

Having Piquet crash at that point in the race, the most they could have hoped for was some points or a podium. And since there are no guarantees, especially on street races, what team would crash a car the possibility a 3rd place trophy?

[ISLAMATRON]

Yes, as soon as the correct evidence is presented to you, differing from the false one you provided to support your argument, it suddenly has no relevance to the core of the argument, classic loser's tactic.

F1.com has been wrong before. Your assumption is you have the correct information.
Regardless, it is irrelevant.

Alonso pitted prior to the crash. The Red bulls pitted after the crash but before the safety car was deployed.
The key factor is that Renault would have had to know the Red Bulls could (and would) pit prior to the safety car being deployed.

FA was ahead of MW & DC at the restart, it did not matter at all(for FA's race) that they pitted before the SC came out, they were still behind Alonso and at Singapore had no way to pass... They are unimportant.

As soon as the pit window opened for a 2 stopper and FA was the first to pit and the SC came out right after he was automatically going to be the lead car, the only thing that disturbed that was that NR & RK pitted while pits were closed and the stewards took forever to serve them their penalty, honestly they should have been made to serve it even before the restart.

Note that your reading comprehension suffers, spinning on purpose is attributed to HK, not to PK, big advantage is attributed to LH & FA, regardless of how/why their teammate hypothetically spun.

You did not say hypothetically. You asserted "just as it happened to FA" that is a clear inference of intent on Piquet's part.
If you were writing a statement of work for an engineering company, you'd get crapped on from a great height on the back of that statement.

You are correct, I could have been clearer, but you also read into it more than needed... you assumed I said something that I did not.

Was Alonso at the head of the field when the safety car came in after Piquet's crash?
Yes or no.

Yes, he was the first car that did not need to pit or serve a penalty, that is all that matters

If you want to be pedantic and argue over lap numbers 12/13/14/15...
WAS ALONSO AT THE HEAD OF THE FIELD WHEN THE SAFETY CAR PITTED... YES OR NO?
(I would like to think a simple binary answer would not be beyond you)

If you can only understand yes or no answers that is your problem, the running order at the restart(lap 20) was ROS(penalty),TRU(no pit),FIS(no pit), KUB(penalty), ALO, so yes effectively FA was the leader... LH crossed the finish line 1st last year at SPA, was he the Winner? No because he had a penalty.

FA did not need a blocker, his 1st pit was long and took alot of fuel(more evidence that it may have been planned) and so therefore LH pitted a grand total of 1 lap later than FA on the 2nd pitstop, FA could have kept up enough gap without DC to prevent being leapfrogged by the 1 lap difference.

Absolute rubbish. Absolute rubbish and you know it.
Having to get out and do a lap on relatively cold (and unknown tyres) costs the driver that pits first significant amounts of time.WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!
We have seen dozens of examples where 1 lap is enough to overtake the driver that pitted first.
I also notice you have disregarded the two Ferraris. Interesting considering Massa was the fastest man of the weekend, and would have had an even greater probability of beating Alonso.

So all of a sudden FA would have had a slow 1st lap out of the pits but not LH? The first lap out of the pits is slower for every driver, but for some more than others(depending on traffic & driver skill)... Pitting 1 lap earlier is not inherently a disadvantage except for the 1 lap less fuel the later pitting driver has to take onboard.

Pitting 1 lap earlier does not cost them any more time because the very next lap the other driver is in the same situation.
Yes sometimes 1 lap difference has caused a leader change, but it is very rare

Tell me how much gap would he need to protect himself from the 1 lap later that LH ran after FA's 1st pit stop? more than the 1 sec last year's cars had to stay away from each other to not lose all the aero?

1 second between cars due to aerodynamics?
How on earth did Hamilton manage to overtake Coulthard if he could not get within 1 second of him?
Hmmm.... does not compute.
You'll need to go back and dream up another argument that is not built on quicksand.

Seriously did you even watch the --- race? Alonso pitted and came out just ahead of DC and slowed him down alot and HAmilton used the opportunity to get pass DC, then LH&DC pitted that very same lap and DC had a long stop because of refueling issues...

[ISLAMATRON]

Its just all so crazy, people making the evidence fit the crime. How did Renault know about the Red Bulls, Ferrari's misfortunes, or where FA would end up after the crash?

Autosport's Adam Cooper wrote this last year in the race review.....

In fact, Fernando did suffer a bit of bad luck at this point. The safety car came charging out right in front of him - in fact it almost collected Fisichella - so while everyone else was still able to run pretty quickly as the queue formed, he was trapped.

Having Piquet crash at that point in the race, the most they could have hoped for was some points or a podium. And since there are no guarantees, especially on street races, what team would crash a car the possibility a 3rd place trophy?

Watch some AOWR(which is now only IRL) and you will understand, If you pit just before the SC you are guaranteed to move to the front of the grid(unless you go a lap down while pitting). The red bulls were not important, because they were behind FA behind the SC, The Ferrari's were also not important because they had to pit behind the SC, Massa with a perfect pit stop would still have been behind FA just as LH was. And KIMI also was not important because he would have been stacked behind Massa even with a perfect pit stop.

They started the race P15&P16, why wouldnt they try something to get up higher than that?
And even a podium would have been much better than what Renault had been achieving all year, and with FA having a performance clause in his contract, and Ghosn allways looking over Flav's shoulder they certainly had motive... and I have already explained the opportunity part.

Motive & opportunity have already been established and for that reason alone the FIA is correct for at least looking into the matter, especially if some more evidence has been revealed.

[Motornic]

I understand the concept of the safety car shuffle, but you are taking far too many variables for granted in the alleged intent. How do they tell Piquet when to crash? How do they know exactly when to tell him to crash? Massa was in fact the fastest of the weekend and would have been the one to beat. Clauses in Alonso's contract? Have you read such document. I'm sure a good number of the drivers have this same thing. Its probably standard practice. How many other teams have been wrecking cars for podiums for this clause?

And even a podium would have been much better than what Renault had been achieving all year

Renault's form? Except for one DNF they never scored lower than 4th place starting in Hungary and after Singapore did quite well for themselves in Japan and to the end of the season. That is A LOT better than what they have done this season.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing to base a theory off of. If they were stupid enough to plot and "steal" the GP they deserve to get banned.

Ferrari killed Eddie Irvine's title shot with a flubbed pit stop, Barrichello hinted at Brawn conspiring against him, but did they really? And how exactly do you prove such a thing?

[mep]

ISLAMATRON and kilcoo316 you are discussing about little details of the race what is really ridiculous.

Such a plan will be worked out long before the race, maybe one week before or so.
So the people know nothing about the race details from the other drivers.

Furthermore this plan will work a bit other as it did.
First of all Alonso will need a car who is quick.
They had the car and knew it.
So now Alonso will try to get this car as far to the front as possible.
And he did, because as I remember Renault was handled as a pole candidate the whole week end. There was just a little issue during qualy so it didn't work.
(I am sure someone can check what happened during qualy)
Normally Alonso would use a really light car to get P1 or at least a top position.
The disadvantage because of the light car in the race does not exist because he already knew SC will come out just after his stop.

So now on the race Alonso will drive a few laps in a good position or maybe on first position.
Maybe he will even be able to get enough time between him and the heavy cars starting from P10 on.
After a early pit stop he might get back in front of the heavy cars(P9 or so).
Now just after Alonos stop his team mate will crash and cause a safety car.
So all the fast and light cars will be forced to pit or at least they will be just in front of Alonso and will pit a few laps later.
When this runs perfectly Alonso will be on P1 after the SC with relatively slow cars behind him and the fast cars somewhere in the middle or at the end of the field.
And everybody knows that the race of a lot of people will be --- up when there is a safety car at the wrong time.
Furthermore you know that it is hard to overtake on a street circuit, so the fast cars will not be able to come back to the front.
After that it is a easy drive for Alonso.
You can see that as he managed to win even with starting from the midfield.

[ISLAMATRON]

I am not taking any of the variables for granted, all that is needed for FA to vault to the front of the grid was that he pit before anyone else ahead of him(pretty easy to do when you pit on lap 12 of a 61 lap race), and that the SC comes out directly afterwards. With the red light at the end of the F1 pit lane it guarantees that anyone who does not pit behind the SC is automatically ahead of anyone who does.

The rules were flawed and the FIA finally recognized that and after way too long finally fixed them.

The only thing that could have scuttled the plan was if Massa & the other leaders were able to pit between the time PK crashed and the SC came out... (pretty much what MW & DC did)... but the timing of the crash would have been crucual for that.

Telling PK when to do it could have been as simple as giving him a code before the race such as fuel mix 86(as in 86 the race), or it didnt have to be anything at all.... it could have just been the pits keying up the mic 3 times in a row without saying anything to him. When I was a taxi driver in college, that was the emergency code that we could send to dispatch without saying anything... in case of a stick up.

FA lucked into about 3 positions at Hungary for the 4th(Massa engine blow, LH tire blow etc), and was great in that last rain spout in SPA but still no podium. It is well publicized that FA had a 2 year contract at Renault after leaving McMerc, and the 2nd year was an option depending on certain performance levels by the team, so having yet to get a podium to that date (Singapore) they may have devised a plan to do so. Alonso is one of the very few drivers in F1 right now who could get such a contract with any team.

You say that renault's form was alot better in 2008 than today... but look at all the rumours of Alonso leaving... dont you think winning a couple(or even a string of Podiums & a huge paycheck) might give him pause to switching.

[Motornic]

You say that renault's form was alot better in 2008 than today... but look at all the rumours of Alonso leaving... dont you think winning a couple(or even a string of Podiums & a huge paycheck) might give him pause to switching.

How many cars can they crash for that?

[jason.parker.86]

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/n ... 0847.shtml

Says on their they are looking beyond just the crash-gate saga? Has Nelson opened a can of worms (i.e. revealed spy-gate,crash-gate,nazi-gate)?

Jason

[ISLAMATRON]

You say that renault's form was alot better in 2008 than today... but look at all the rumours of Alonso leaving... dont you think winning a couple(or even a string of Podiums & a huge paycheck) might give him pause to switching.

How many cars can they crash for that?

None because PK refused to crash anymore and for that he was canned... just kidding.

If he cant get you any points might as well make him useful in another way. Just imagine all the wins Nico could have racked up if Williams learned how to harness Kazoo's crashing ability.

[jason.parker.86]

Guys - Just a thought - Nelson has been asked to "crash"... doesnt actually say he did crash, so could this just be Nelson saying they asked me to crash, but I didnt... The Singapore GP could have been where he was asked to crash but did any way?

[mep]

You say that renault's form was alot better in 2008 than today... but look at all the rumours of Alonso leaving... dont you think winning a couple(or even a string of Podiums & a huge paycheck) might give him pause to switching.

How many cars can they crash for that?

I never said this, seems like you quoted wrong.
please change this.


By the way it is not neccesary to give Nelson a comand when to crash
because he knows long before the race when Alonso will go to pits.

[ISLAMATRON]

You say that renault's form was alot better in 2008 than today... but look at all the rumours of Alonso leaving... dont you think winning a couple(or even a string of Podiums & a huge paycheck) might give him pause to switching.

How many cars can they crash for that?

I never said this, seems like you quoted wrong.
please change this.


By the way it is not neccesary to give Nelson a comand when to crash
because he knows long before the race when Alonso will go to pits.

and since FA was P15 & PK was P16... he would physically seen it

[Motornic]

I never said this, seems like you quoted wrong.
please change this.

Sorry on that one. Fixed!

[kilcoo316]

FA was ahead of MW & DC at the restart, it did not matter at all(for FA's race) that they pitted before the SC came out, they were still behind Alonso and at Singapore had no way to pass... They are unimportant.

Coulthard was extremely important to Alonso's race.

You are either too proud to admit your wrong, or are not intelligent enough to realise it.

So all of a sudden FA would have had a slow 1st lap out of the pits but not LH?

Your about as bright as a blackout!


Yes, the man that pits second does have cold tyres, and is not as quick as he might be on his outlap.

BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER AS THE OTHER GUY IS TRAPPED BEHIND HIM.


And your the self proclaimed expert on race strategy?!?!?!

You ever actually watched a race and tried to understand what is going on???

Pitting 1 lap earlier is not inherently a disadvantage except for the 1 lap less fuel the later pitting driver has to take onboard.

Quit. Seriously. Give up now.


There are multiple advantages to pitting one lap later. Here are a few (read the bit below to see why they matter):

- The man that pitted first has to carry a full fuel tank around on his outlap
- The man that pitted first has to get heat into his tyres
- The man that pitted first has to gauge the grip levels of his new tyres

If there is just a 1 lap difference between the pitstops, the man that pitted first has to achieve sector times on his out lap equal to the man that pits 2nd on his in lap.

Pitting 1 lap earlier does not cost them any more time because the very next lap the other driver is in the same situation.

This is getting too easy.


The man that pits first has got to carry an inherent disadvantage* from the time he leaves the pit box until the pit lane exit on the next lap.

The man that pits second only carries a partial disadvantage** from the time he leaves the pit box until the pit lane exit 100 metres away.

* massive fuel weight disparity, cold tyres & unknown grip levels all the way through the outlap
** cold tyres & unknown grip levels

Track position is king. If the man that pits second gets out of the pitlane before the man that pits first can overtake him, then the warm tyre advantage of the 1st pitter is negated about 99% of the time.

Seriously did you even watch the --- race? Alonso pitted and came out just ahead of DC and slowed him down alot and HAmilton used the opportunity to get pass DC

If you watched the race, you'd know that Hamilton was right under his rear wing a number of times prior to the overtaking move.

You'd also know that Trulli got overtaken probably about a dozen times!


But of course - none of that happened as its impossible to get within a second of the car infront. So our resident self appointed expert of all things F1 tells us anyway.