22/09/2009
NEWS STORY
Max Mosley has rejected claims that the FIA was unduly lenient when it handed the Renault F1 Team a two-year suspended ban for its involvement in the Singapore Grand Prix race-fixing scandal.
Talking to reporters in the wake of the extraordinary meeting of the World Motor sport council, the Englishman said: "I think it's the right decision. I think the blame has been placed where the blame should be placed. The penalty for Renault is disqualification but suspended for two years. So what that means is that provided they don't do something silly in the next two years, they don't have any problems."
Quite what he means by "something silly", when the French outfit admitted no defence to the charge that members of its team had conspired to deliberately cause a crash that would benefit its other driver is unclear, and has left many feeling that Renault was essentially let off the hook in an attempt to prevent it following Honda and BMW out of the sport.
Fears that a 'deal' might have been done beforehand - in addition to the promise of immunity offered to Nelson Piquet and Pat Symonds - were compounded by Mosley's admission that the WMSC had sought - and received - assurances from Renault that it would remain in the sport.
"The penalty that we have imposed is the harshest one we can inflict, which is disqualification, and it is complete expulsion from the sport," said Mosley. "However, because Renault demonstrated that they had absolutely no moral responsibility for what took place - that is to say Renault F1 the team did not know and still less did the company have any responsibility - it would be wrong in the circumstances to impose an immediate penalty. I think we've demonstrated that we've dealt with it."
However, to many, both within the paddock and fans, the two-year suspended ban is seen as a joke when compared with the $100m fine meted out to McLaren following its involvement in the 2007 spying scandal. Especially when many feel that the French team was lucky to escape punishment after being found in possession of McLaren data.
At a subsequent meeting of the WMSC in December 2007, Renault was found to have breached Article 151(c) of the International Sporting Code, which prohibits "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally". However, it was decided that there should be "no penalty due to the lack of evidence that the Championship has been affected".