Brother Michael
Well-Known Member
Hmm....it?s been a while since I have bored you guys with my posts. Prepare yourselves, it?s time for another edition of Bro Mike?s mindless ramblings.
I was going to write something earlier, but I wanted to wait to see if any pressing evidence comes up. As the situation has unveiled, at least to some extent, here are some thoughts I have been carrying up to this point.
First of all I wasn't expecting such drastic measures from Briatore and Symonds. Having read all the transcripts, interviews and other info available, it was quite clear that Symonds was going down no matter what. However there wasn't any conclusive evidence to say what Briatore?s role is in all this, at least none publically available. Piquet is done with his F1 career, that is for certain: nobody is going to hire him after this.
As I see it, there are/were four different parties in this: Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds, Nelson Piquet Jr and Nelson Piquet Sr. Having read through the material, it was obvious that Symonds was going to take the fall and was perhaps even covering for Briatore, thus making it possible for Flavio to continue with the sport and Symonds getting a healthy rewards for his actions, off the record naturally.
Then there is Nelson Piquet Jr. who is first and foremost a fucking awful racing driver with zero talent. But what he is also is a spoiled, whiny, dumbass daddy's boy who thinks he should get to do anything he wants because his father is a famous ex-racing driver. Now this is where I thought things got interesting. Sure it was fairly straight forward that Piquet had crashed on purpose, the telemetry doesn't lie.
However when this case started to unfold, charges were made against the Piquet family on the count of false accusations and blackmailing. It was also unclear at that point who made the initiative leading to the crash at Singapore: was it Briatore & Symonds or Piquet. This made me very cautious about pointing blame at anyone, because Nelson Piquet Sr. is an idiot, a real dickhead and he is a man I can very well believe to do something so outrageous just to save an F1 seat for the idot son of his. Now that is a bold claim from the Renault camp...accusing Piquet Sr. of blackmailing, but I wouldn't be surprised if those claims actually end up being true.
And this to me raises another question: if Piquet Sr. has known about this all along....who else has known ? For example Briatore is a co-owner of Queen's Park Rangers, a football club. Bernie Ecclestone also has a stake in the same club. Bernie's comments regarding Briatore's resigning have been fairly calm and reserved taking to account the severe nature and magnitude of the case. I'm not saying Ecclestone has known anything, but could it be possible ? Usually when Bernie has something to say it is more or less crude, un-apologetic, in your face sort of stuff. Yet this time he held back...I wonder why ? As far as I am concerned, I think he could've known about this. Though I don't know how close Bernie and Flavio are, but assuming they are business partners also outside of F1, there could be something to this.
Then there is the question of what is Alonso's role in all this ? So far the evidence shows that he had no knowledge whatsoever about the incident and I believe so. If the engineers didn't know, how could and why should Alonso even know about this ? This is all speculation, of course, but even if Alonso DID know about this, there is no way to prove it. Piquet hasn't said anything (not yet at least), so he might have no clue about Alonso's position in this. Briatore sure as hell won't be ratting Fernando out and I really doubt Symonds is going to do it. Therefore it is rather safe to say Alonso?s career will continue, or at least he has the possibility: we don?t? know if Renault will even be here come next season and Ferrari still haven?t confirmed their 2010 drivers so Alonso may end up without a seat !! I know that?s pushing it, but it could happen.
As for the aftermath...well...Mosley has probably been jumping up and down ever since Piquet came forward with his statements, because this could prove to be a golden opportunity for Max to get rid of another arch rival of his, Briatore. Dennis is gone, now Briatore would be gone....that would only leave Di Montezemolo. What a way to go out for Mosley. He could claim to have cleaned up the F1 from corruption and because of him and his era, Formula 1 is a pure sport once again. We all know that is a bunch of prime horseshit and the whole thought makes me sick, but the fact that he offered Piquet immunity makes me think even less of him. Of course you could compare it to Stepneygate and when Alonso was offered a same kind of deal, but it isn't the same: this time the driver (Piquet) was an essential part of the proceedings. As Briatore said, eventually it was Piquet who crashed and put the lives of others in potential danger. Piquet is the one who executed the crash, therefore I find it disgusting that he gets away with it. And it is still yet unproven who came up with the idea to crash: Piquet or Briatore. I believe the only thing Mosley had in mind when offering this immunity deal to Nelson, was Briatore's humiliation.
What will happen to Renault ? Tough to say now, since Briatore, Symonds and Piquet are no longer employees of the team and have nothing to do with the sport, can the team itself be punished anymore ? This was my first thought reagarding the sudden resignation of the duo Pat & Flavio - they are trying to save, if there is anything to save, Renault's future as a team in the grid. If it can be shown that no other members of the team were involved with the crash, I believe Renault as a team should be left unpunished and in turn impliment perhaps life long bans for both Symonds and Briatore. Though I would add Piquet to this lot, due to the reasons I gave earlier. As for the charges pressed against Piquet Sr....if those come out to be true, he should be banned from every single Formula 1 circuit for the rest of his life - nobody like him should be allowed to have any connections to this sport.
Regardless of what happens to Renault's F1 team, Renault as a manufacturer may have some other thoughts about staying in the grid, as their name has been ashamed. And they have already been thinking about withdrawing from the grid. Same thing for ING - they may want to reconsider staying with the Renault team.
However rumours are saying David Richards has already been interviewed for the position of team leader, to follow Briatore. Just like in 1997, when Briatore was shown the door and Richards took over. Now what ever punishment the Renault team will receive, the future doesn't look very good for them. Richards has been very vocal about how Prodrive unfairly didn't get a spot in the 2010 grid. This could open up a way for Richards and Prodrive, which in turn could mean that Aston Martin comes to Formula 1 !!
It all makes perfect sense, because Renault will probably be more than willing to sell the team, there are already rumours about Red Bull wanting to change engine supplier...this would give a clean way out from the sport for the French carmaker. And since Richards is willing to make a comeback to F1....I consider this to be a win-win situation. Which is quite remarkable, if you ask me. I am actually going to post a bold prediction: Richards will buy the current Renault team, eventually name it Prodrive or Aston martin and hire Alonso and Bruno Senna as drivers.
Of course Formula 1 as a sport has taken yet another huge blow, but with the resignation of Renault's top two players, I think they saved a whole lot, because now the controversy and shit spewing has most likely ended before it really picked up speed. Now the only thing to decide is the fate of Renault's team, and that's it, because they have already accepted the charges and are not going to fight it. This may all sound a bit hard to handle at first, but this could actually pave a much smoother road for F1 from here on; next season will be starting from a clean table, with a new FIA president, new teams including Lotus and possibly Aston Martin/Prodrive, only Di Montezemolo from the old school guys left....here's to hoping no new major twists and facts come unraveled now that "Crashgate" is seemingly in it's final stages.
Wow?..that makes absolutely no sense
. I should probably try to write something a bit more coherent and clear for my next one.
I was going to write something earlier, but I wanted to wait to see if any pressing evidence comes up. As the situation has unveiled, at least to some extent, here are some thoughts I have been carrying up to this point.
First of all I wasn't expecting such drastic measures from Briatore and Symonds. Having read all the transcripts, interviews and other info available, it was quite clear that Symonds was going down no matter what. However there wasn't any conclusive evidence to say what Briatore?s role is in all this, at least none publically available. Piquet is done with his F1 career, that is for certain: nobody is going to hire him after this.
As I see it, there are/were four different parties in this: Flavio Briatore, Pat Symonds, Nelson Piquet Jr and Nelson Piquet Sr. Having read through the material, it was obvious that Symonds was going to take the fall and was perhaps even covering for Briatore, thus making it possible for Flavio to continue with the sport and Symonds getting a healthy rewards for his actions, off the record naturally.
Then there is Nelson Piquet Jr. who is first and foremost a fucking awful racing driver with zero talent. But what he is also is a spoiled, whiny, dumbass daddy's boy who thinks he should get to do anything he wants because his father is a famous ex-racing driver. Now this is where I thought things got interesting. Sure it was fairly straight forward that Piquet had crashed on purpose, the telemetry doesn't lie.
However when this case started to unfold, charges were made against the Piquet family on the count of false accusations and blackmailing. It was also unclear at that point who made the initiative leading to the crash at Singapore: was it Briatore & Symonds or Piquet. This made me very cautious about pointing blame at anyone, because Nelson Piquet Sr. is an idiot, a real dickhead and he is a man I can very well believe to do something so outrageous just to save an F1 seat for the idot son of his. Now that is a bold claim from the Renault camp...accusing Piquet Sr. of blackmailing, but I wouldn't be surprised if those claims actually end up being true.
And this to me raises another question: if Piquet Sr. has known about this all along....who else has known ? For example Briatore is a co-owner of Queen's Park Rangers, a football club. Bernie Ecclestone also has a stake in the same club. Bernie's comments regarding Briatore's resigning have been fairly calm and reserved taking to account the severe nature and magnitude of the case. I'm not saying Ecclestone has known anything, but could it be possible ? Usually when Bernie has something to say it is more or less crude, un-apologetic, in your face sort of stuff. Yet this time he held back...I wonder why ? As far as I am concerned, I think he could've known about this. Though I don't know how close Bernie and Flavio are, but assuming they are business partners also outside of F1, there could be something to this.
Then there is the question of what is Alonso's role in all this ? So far the evidence shows that he had no knowledge whatsoever about the incident and I believe so. If the engineers didn't know, how could and why should Alonso even know about this ? This is all speculation, of course, but even if Alonso DID know about this, there is no way to prove it. Piquet hasn't said anything (not yet at least), so he might have no clue about Alonso's position in this. Briatore sure as hell won't be ratting Fernando out and I really doubt Symonds is going to do it. Therefore it is rather safe to say Alonso?s career will continue, or at least he has the possibility: we don?t? know if Renault will even be here come next season and Ferrari still haven?t confirmed their 2010 drivers so Alonso may end up without a seat !! I know that?s pushing it, but it could happen.
As for the aftermath...well...Mosley has probably been jumping up and down ever since Piquet came forward with his statements, because this could prove to be a golden opportunity for Max to get rid of another arch rival of his, Briatore. Dennis is gone, now Briatore would be gone....that would only leave Di Montezemolo. What a way to go out for Mosley. He could claim to have cleaned up the F1 from corruption and because of him and his era, Formula 1 is a pure sport once again. We all know that is a bunch of prime horseshit and the whole thought makes me sick, but the fact that he offered Piquet immunity makes me think even less of him. Of course you could compare it to Stepneygate and when Alonso was offered a same kind of deal, but it isn't the same: this time the driver (Piquet) was an essential part of the proceedings. As Briatore said, eventually it was Piquet who crashed and put the lives of others in potential danger. Piquet is the one who executed the crash, therefore I find it disgusting that he gets away with it. And it is still yet unproven who came up with the idea to crash: Piquet or Briatore. I believe the only thing Mosley had in mind when offering this immunity deal to Nelson, was Briatore's humiliation.
What will happen to Renault ? Tough to say now, since Briatore, Symonds and Piquet are no longer employees of the team and have nothing to do with the sport, can the team itself be punished anymore ? This was my first thought reagarding the sudden resignation of the duo Pat & Flavio - they are trying to save, if there is anything to save, Renault's future as a team in the grid. If it can be shown that no other members of the team were involved with the crash, I believe Renault as a team should be left unpunished and in turn impliment perhaps life long bans for both Symonds and Briatore. Though I would add Piquet to this lot, due to the reasons I gave earlier. As for the charges pressed against Piquet Sr....if those come out to be true, he should be banned from every single Formula 1 circuit for the rest of his life - nobody like him should be allowed to have any connections to this sport.
Regardless of what happens to Renault's F1 team, Renault as a manufacturer may have some other thoughts about staying in the grid, as their name has been ashamed. And they have already been thinking about withdrawing from the grid. Same thing for ING - they may want to reconsider staying with the Renault team.
However rumours are saying David Richards has already been interviewed for the position of team leader, to follow Briatore. Just like in 1997, when Briatore was shown the door and Richards took over. Now what ever punishment the Renault team will receive, the future doesn't look very good for them. Richards has been very vocal about how Prodrive unfairly didn't get a spot in the 2010 grid. This could open up a way for Richards and Prodrive, which in turn could mean that Aston Martin comes to Formula 1 !!
It all makes perfect sense, because Renault will probably be more than willing to sell the team, there are already rumours about Red Bull wanting to change engine supplier...this would give a clean way out from the sport for the French carmaker. And since Richards is willing to make a comeback to F1....I consider this to be a win-win situation. Which is quite remarkable, if you ask me. I am actually going to post a bold prediction: Richards will buy the current Renault team, eventually name it Prodrive or Aston martin and hire Alonso and Bruno Senna as drivers.
Of course Formula 1 as a sport has taken yet another huge blow, but with the resignation of Renault's top two players, I think they saved a whole lot, because now the controversy and shit spewing has most likely ended before it really picked up speed. Now the only thing to decide is the fate of Renault's team, and that's it, because they have already accepted the charges and are not going to fight it. This may all sound a bit hard to handle at first, but this could actually pave a much smoother road for F1 from here on; next season will be starting from a clean table, with a new FIA president, new teams including Lotus and possibly Aston Martin/Prodrive, only Di Montezemolo from the old school guys left....here's to hoping no new major twists and facts come unraveled now that "Crashgate" is seemingly in it's final stages.
Wow?..that makes absolutely no sense
. I should probably try to write something a bit more coherent and clear for my next one.
