Renault gets 2-year suspended ban in crash scandal

PARIS — Renault has escaped severe punishment for ordering former driver Nelson Piquet Jr. to deliberately crash, receiving only a suspended two-year ban from Formula One’s governing body.

Flavio Briatore, who quit as team principal last week, was banned indefinitely Monday from any F1 activities by the World Motor Sport Council.

Engineering executive director Pat Symonds, who also left the French team last week, was banned for five years.

Piquet was ordered to crash at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix to help teammate Fernando Alonso win.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

PARIS (AP) — The Renault Formula One team will learn its fate Monday at a hearing into how its former driver Nelson Piquet Jr. was ordered by management to deliberately crash his car, a life-threatening move that further tarnishes a sport rocked by scandals and cheating.

F1 has been shaken by the news that Renault ordered its struggling Brazilian driver to plow his car into a concrete wall so that teammate Fernando Alonso could win the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

Renault faces a points deduction, suspension or even exclusion from the championship at the FIA’s Paris headquarters on Monday. It is unclear who will represent them at the World Motor Sport Council hearing.

Renault could escape with a significant fine, since it has taken measures to limit the damage. Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s commercial rights-holder, wants the French-owned team to stay in F1.

Renault did not contest the charges and split with the team’s principal Flavio Briatore, and engineering executive director Pat Symonds. Both allegedly plotted Piquet’s crash in detail.

Briatore and Symonds are not required to attend the hearing. Piquet has immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying to the FIA, while Alonso is unlikely to face punishment as there is no evidence he knew the orders.

While F1 and the FIA has seen plenty of scandals in the past, this one has struck a particularly raw nerve at a time when driver safety had been called into question after Felipe Massa almost died in a crash.

“If it puts human life at risk, whether it’s the spectators, the marshals or the drivers, then it’s more serious again,” FIA president Max Mosley said.

Piquet Jr. has since left the team after a major falling out with Briatore.

The subsequent introduction of the safety car early in the race on the 13th lap helped Alonso win the race, as he had just made an early pit stop and could move up the field when the other cars had to refuel.

When Piquet Jr. made the Singapore plan public, Briatore responded by threatening legal action, alleging the team had been blackmailed by the Brazilian and his three-time world champion father, Nelson Piquet, to keep the conspiracy quiet.

Former drivers, such as Britain’s Damon Hill, agreed that a driver deliberately crashing this way was an unprecedented and life-threatening maneuver. The timing of Piquet Jr.’s revelations could not be more painful for the FIA.

Massa needed lifesaving surgery on multiple skull fractures after qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix this year when he was hit in the head by a loose part on the track and crashed into a protective barrier. In a Formula Two race at Brands Hatch, Henry Surtees, son of the former world champion, John, died after being struck by a tire that escaped from another car that had crashed.

The scandal is the latest in a series of controversies in F1. The year began with challenges over the legality of several cars, including pacesetting Brawn GP, under new technical regulations.

Soon after, reigning F1 champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren admitted to deliberately misleading a steward inquiry. That prompted the departure of the team’s sporting director, Dave Ryan, while team boss Ron Dennis also stepped aside.

The Formula One Teams Association also threatened to quit F1 and launch their own series, the culmination of a power struggle that characterized the often antagonistic relationship among the teams and with the sport’s officials.