Nelson Piquet Sr. says he told the FIA about Renault's alleged race-fixing at last year's Singapore Grand Prix weeks after the race.
Three-times champion says he first made allegations in November
Nelson Piquet Sr. has revealed that he first informed the FIA of Renault's race-fixing at last year's Singapore Grand Prix just weeks after the event had allegedly taken place.
The three-times world champion claimed he told the FIA's race director Charlie Whiting about the incident at the Brazilian Grand Prix in November last year.
"When this thing happened in Singapore I couldn't believe it. I'd done motor racing for all my life," the
Daily Mirror quoted Piquet as having told a private investigator for Quest, whom the FIA have employed to look into the allegation.
"I couldn't believe this thing. And after I called Nelson and Nelson said yes they asked me if I could help and this and that.
"I said 'but you could have hurt yourself and if you didn't hurt yourself you could have hurt somebody else' and he said 'yeah, I know it's wrong' but anyway.
"Anyway in Brazil I talk to Charlie.
"I got him and I said 'look, what could happen to Nelson if I bring this up?' And I was afraid to screw up the career of Nelson."
Transcripts
Meanwhile, Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera, also carried extracts of the transcripts with Quest in which Piquet Sr. says he spoke with Max Mosley.
According to Piquet Sr, when he approached Mosley, the FIA president said: "Charlie has already informed me but we can't prove anything unless someone comes to tell me the facts."
In the event, Piquet Sr. approached the FIA once again after his son was sacked by Renault at the end of July following a string of poor results.
Piquet Jr. on this occasion provided a statement in which he alleged that Renault team principal Flavio Briatore and executive director of engineering Pat Symonds asked him to crash in order to boost the chances of team-mate Fernando Alonso.
The Spaniard won the race from 15th place on the grid after taking advantage of a safety car brought about by Piquet Jr's shunt.
Piquet Jr's allegations set in motion the chain of events which have brought the departures of both Briatore and Symonds from the team, with Renault themselves appearing before the FIA's World Motor Sport Council on Monday.
The team have said they will not dispute the allegation.
Surprise
Meanwhile, Piquet Sr. has backtracked on an earlier suggestion that Alonso himself was in on the alleged plan and instead expressed surprise that a double world champion would not question Renault's unusual strategy for the race.
The team brought him in for a pit stop on lap 12, which sent him to the very back of the field prior to Piquet Jr's crash.
"All I said was that an intelligent driver like Alonso would ask questions if his team told him to come in to pit after 12 laps from 15th on the grid," Piquet Sr. told
The Telegraph.
"As a driver I would have suspected something, so I can imagine only with difficulty that Fernando didn't know anything."
