Warwick tells FIA: Ban Piquet for life

Nelsinho Piquet should be banned from motorsport for life for his role in the ‘Singapore-gate’ scandal that is threatening to drive Renault out of Formula 1 – that is the view of one of the Régie’s former drivers Derek Warwick, who is adamant that the young Brazilian should simply have said ‘no’.

According to Warwick, though the whole situation could have been avoided had Piquet simply stood his ground in the first place, rather than acquiescing to the flagrantly unreasonable demands of an employer who he feared was about to let him go.

“I would never, ever, ever employ Nelson Piquet Jnr again," the Englishman told Crash.net Radio. “What I struggle with is that for me, what he’s done – breaking the confidence of a team on an agreement that he had – is outrageous, and I think that’s something he has to now live with for the rest of his life. I don’t think there’s a team out there that will employ him; he’s unemployable as far as I’m concerned.

“What’s that saying, ‘what goes away stays away’? I could tell a few stories, I could write a few books – but they’re confidences that I’ve got on the way through. Would I put a car in the wall for my team-mate? No, but then Nelson also had that opportunity. People are saying he’s a young driver and he could have said no – well he should have said no. I would like the FIA to ban Nelson Piquet for life."