MOTORSPORT: Mosley gets it right on Renault

The World Motor Sport Council is copping heavy criticism around the world today over its decision in the Renault case, but none of that here. It has got this one spot on. And good and bad signs for A1 GP – and consequently the Gold Coast's SuperGP – today. The bottom line of it all though is yet more confusion.

And it's official that Melbourne has lost its prized pole position on the Formula One world championship calendar, with confirmation that the opening race next year will be in Bahrain a fortnight before the Oz GP.

The gist of this case was that (then) Renault driver Nelson Piquet Junior was instructed by team principal Flavio Briatore and director of engineering Pat Symmons to crash his car during last year's Singapore Grand Prix to assist teammate Fernando Alonso win the race.

Piquet was sacked by the team two months ago, spilled the beans on the order to crash; Briatore made lots of noise, including claiming to be initiating legal action against Piquet and his triple world champion father Nelson Senior; but last week the Italian and Symmonds were ousted from the team by manufacturer Renault, which said it would not dispute the charges against it.

The WMSC last night handed the manufacturer/team a suspended two-year ban from F1, but with Briatore effectively banned from any major motorsport for life and Symmonds banned for five years (view the WMSC's announcement).

Renault has said: "We apologise unreservedly to the F1 community in relation to this unacceptable behaviour."

Over the weekend this author read a brilliant article titled 'A Sport Corrupted' by American Forrest Bond in his RaceFax electronic publication, in which a couple of sentences struck a chord.

They were: "While once F1 was about admirable heroes, mortal risk and competition, it now bears a too striking resemblance to the money laundering of the Mexican drug cartels and the wealth redistribution of dictatorships in banana republics," and "F1's history over the last 20 years reads like scripts for episodes of 'The Sopranos'.

Late week we steered readers to some excellent work by Edward Gorman of The Times of London which painted the Renault/Singapore GP business as the lowest, dirtiest deed in the history of all sport. Today Gorman condemns the WMSC decisions on the case.

But this author feels the WMSC has got the penalties exactly right in what may be Max Mosley's last big decision as FIA president before next month's election (in which he is not standing, and Frenchman Jean Todt and Finn Ari Vatanen are the candidates).

Put aside the hysteria (even the talk that the WMSC's decision was purely pragmatic to stop Renault withdrawing from F1), when the matter is distilled it is a case of a manufacturer/GP team having been unwittingly betrayed by a rogue team principal and engineering boss. Unfortunately for Renault is was betrayed by two men it has backed to the hilt almost continuously for the best part of two decades.

There may have been a couple of others in that team in on the Singapore 'fix', but that is not to say that the whole team is rotten – and certainly not the manufacturer Renault.

The villains, Briatore and Symmonds, are gone from the team (and Renault did the right thing by getting rid of them before the WMSC hearing) and should never return to the sport. Symmonds we reckon to be in his mid-50s and, after a five-year ban, is unlikely to resurface.

Briatore will find plenty of other mischief to occupy himself, but there is much more tidying up to be done behind him. There is the matter of his close friendship with F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone; his involvement in the GP2 series that is a support category to European GPs; and his management of several F1 drivers – among them Alonso and Australia's Mark Webber. Both may need to find a replacement manager if they are to retain their SuperLicence to race in F1.

Not that it need bother the motorsport community, there also is Briatore's part-ownership (with, among others, Ecclestone) of the Queens Park Rangers soccer club in Britain, where surely he will be forced out too under rules that require certain standards of character and behaviour.

This whole Renault episode has been probably the lowest mark in F1's history – and there has been no shortage of other low marks over the journey – but the WMSC has penalised those responsible and done as much as it ought in relation to the manufacturer/team. While Piquet was given immunity in the case his racing career is in tatters. Rightly or wrongly, and we would say the latter, he has become untouchable.

That is the unfortunate lot of the whistleblower.

A1 has a calendar, but what about engines?
A couple more twists and turns in the A1 GP saga in the past 24 hours, and while SuperGP organisers on the Gold Coast will try to paint some of it as clearing the air, there are still as many questions as answers.

In a nutshell, A1 GP – which previously had only announced two races (the Gold Coast and another in Holland) for its fifth season – now has a nine-race calendar.

This gives the appearance of the series having much greater substance than endless reports have indicated. But remember that last season A1 announced a schedule of about a dozen races and ended up staging seven, as we recall.

Missing from the 2009-2010 calendar is New Zealand, which has been one of the strongest supporters of A1. And, shortly before the announcement of the nine-race calendar, Autosport reported last night on doubts over the future of the series because of doubts about the supply of Ferrari engines.

Let's hope A1 can survive, certainly long enough to showcase its act at the Gold Coast and last out another season if indeed that calendar is genuine. But the question must be asked: Even if A1 comes to the Gold Coast in a month, how many cars are going to be on the grid?

At its best the A1 field has comprised cars and drivers representing more than 20 countries. But the indications we get are that reigning champion country Ireland is out (it's team principal, Mark Gallagher, has gone off to run Cosworth's new F1 engine project, and its driver Adam Carroll may be in line for a drive in the expanded F1 field next year) and New Zealand, Holland and Monaco are doubtful.

Little is heard even of A1 Team Australia, headed by our 1980 F1 world champion Alan Jones and for which Queenslander John Martin has been the driver the past two years.

We do not notice Martin featuring in marketing/advertising/promotions for the Gold Coast event and have our suspicions about whether he is contracted for it – and the other eight races now supposedly to follow.

There is talk of a minimum A1 field of 15 cars/drivers on the Gold Coast, but that is barely enough. We - and the public, we suspect – are going to take more convincing that A1 is still a happening thing.

Since the Oz GP moved from Adelaide to Melbourne in 1996 it has been the season opener every year except 2006, when it was run a little later to avoid a clash with Melbourne's Commonwealth Games.

Apart from Australian Grand Prix chairman Ron Walker's boardroom battle at the Fairfax Media company he also chairs, the new F1 calendar is perhaps a sign of him having a diminishing influence in F1 and with its impresario Bernie Ecclestone.

Canada returns to the GP schedule after North America not having an F1 race this year, while Korea makes its debut in October and Brazil becomes the season-ender again instead of Abu Dhabi, which will have that honor only with its debut GP in a little more than a month.

2010 F1 calendar
March 14 – Bahrain
March 28 - Australia
April 4  - Malaysia
April 18 – China
May 9    - Spain
May 23   - Monaco
May 30   - Turkey
June 13  - Canada (subject to completion of contract negotiations)
June 27  - Europe (Valencia)
July 11  - Great Britain
July 25  - Germany
August 1 – Hungary
August 29 – Belgium
September 12 – Italy
September 26 – Singapore
October 3    - Japan
October 17   - Korea
October 31   - Abu Dhabi
November 14  - Brazil

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