FIA to slam Piquet Jr.
Piquet Jr crashed just two laps after his team-mate Fernando Alonso, who was short-fuelled by Renault as they gambled on a Safety Car, stopped for fuel. The ensuing Safety Car situation saw Alonso leap up the order and he eventually went on to win the race.
And although at the time Piquet's crash seemed fortuitous for Alonso, TV Globo reporter Reginaldo Leme claims Massa immediately suspected foul play and confronted Renault team boss Briatore.
"He crashed in a very strange way. It struck me when I was talking recently with Felipe Massa. Felipe had gone to Briatore and said, 'This crash was not right, it happened because you wanted it to,'" said Leme.
09/04/09 Formula one supremo Bernie Ecclestone has warned there could be serious consequences for Renault and Nelson Piquet if any evidence is uncovered by the FIA in their investigation into allegations of race fixing.
Claims emerged last weekend at Spa that Piquet had been ordered to deliberately crash out of the sport's inaugural night race at the 2008 Singapore grand prix to help his Renault team-mate Fernando Alonso secure the race win.
The source of the claims has yet to be revealed and the FIA have yet to confirm that they are looking into the Singapore race.
However, Ecclestone has confirmed that the FIA are looking into events in Singapore and he stated that the governing body are taking the matter seriously.
"The FIA has launched a thorough investigation into the allegations about Nelson," Ecclestone said. "I do not know if they are true or not.
"But if they are true then I would have thought Nelson was in just as much trouble. If I tell you to go and rob a bank and you get caught you can't say, 'Well Bernie told me to.'
"It all seems very strange to me and I do not know the truth." London News
[Editor's Note: If Piquet crashed his car on purpose, regardless of whether he was told to do so, we suspect the FIA will blackball him from F1. So if it was Piquet who leaked this to the FIA to spite Renault for firing him, it will backfire right in his face. No loss to F1, he was slow as a slug.]