Crashgate verdict

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has sentenced the Renault team to a two-year suspended ban until the end of the 2011 Formula 1 season. The verdict was handed down by the sport's governing body after a 90-minute hearing at its Paris headquarters on Monday.

"The ING Renault F1 team admitted that the team had conspired with its driver Nelson Piquet Jr. to cause a deliberate crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, in breach of the International Sporting Code and F1 Sporting Regulations," the FIA said in a statement.

The crash resulted in a safety car phase which effectively helped Piquet's teammate Fernando Alonso win the race.

The World Motor Sport Council said Renault F1's breach had been of unparalleled severity.

"Renault F1's breaches not only compromised the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet, junior, himself."

Nonetheless, the French carmaker merely received a two-year suspended ban that will only be activated if they are found guilty of a similar offence during this period.

Renault avoided a permanent exclusion from the sport by fully cooperating with the FIA investigation and ensuring that the conspirators Piquet, Italian team boss Flavio Briatore and chief engineer Pat Symonds left the team.

Although the FIA showed clemency toward the Renault team as a whole, it was determined to make an example of team boss Briatore who was banned from the sport for life.

"Briatore's problems were that he denied and continued to deny it even when it had become clear that he was implicated. He can no longer be associated with a team, with a championship. He can no longer get into the paddock of a FIA event. He can no longer be a driver's manager," said FIA president Max Mosley.

Renault's chief engineer Pat Symonds was suspended for five years. However, the FIA cleared Alonso - the benefactor of Piquet's deliberate crash - of any involvement in the race fixing, saying he was not in any way involved in Renault F1's breach of the regulations.

Piquet, the son of former world champion Nelson Piquet, avoided sanctions in return for providing evidence to the FIA. Trying to explain why he had agreed to crash his own car, the 24-year-old Brazilian said he had been at the mercy of Briatore.

"Mr. Briatore was my manager as well as the team boss, he had my future in his hands, but he cared nothing for it," Piquet said. "By the time of the Singapore GP, he had isolated me and driven me to the lowest point I had ever reached in my life.

"Now that I am out of that situation, I cannot believe that I agreed to the plan, but when it was put to me I felt that I was in no position to refuse."

The Renault team said in a statement: "We fully accept the decision of the Council. We apologize unreservedly to the F1 community in relation to this unacceptable behavior."

nk/dpa/AP/Reuters/AFP

Editor: Rick Demarest