Sport | Motorsport
Piquet could get the boot very soon
Renault's Nelson Piquet's plunge down among the Formula One also-rans has edged him to the brink of a sacking from the French outfit. And this weekend the Spanish Grand Prix could be the 23-year-old's last race, especially if he does not perform well.
- By Ted Macauley, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 22:51 May 7, 2009
Renault's Nelson Piquet's plunge down among the Formula One also-rans has edged him to the brink of a sacking from the French outfit. And this weekend the Spanish Grand Prix could be the 23-year-old's last race, especially if he does not perform well.
Boss Flavio Briatore has not publicly condemned Piquet, but behind the scenes I am told he is far from happy with the youngster's downright disappointing showings so far this campaign.
His qualifying sessions have been disastrously off the pace and his race efforts have been riddled with errors, so much so that the countdown has begun on an early closure of his F1 career.
In stark contrast, his partner Fernando Alonso, twice the world champion, has been in brighter form with the same level of car and that has served to sabotage even more Piquet's chances of survival.
A familiar sight on the pitwall has been Briatore lowering his eyes and shaking his head in despair as he gazed upon yet another awful slow-coach show from his charge. If Briatore's impatience and constant sacking of managers from his London football team Queens Park Rangers is anything to judge by, then Piquet's hopes and confidence must be below ground level.
His sequence of embarrassing results have seen him spin off several times in Shanghai before ending up 16th and last after qualifying only 17th fastest of 20 cars. At the curtain-raiser Australian Grand Prix he was 15th on the grid and spun out of the race on lap 24. Things were no better in Malaysia where he again could do no better than a 17th place in qualifying and 13th in the race.
He managed to sustain a reasonable race pace in Bahrain and grabbed 10th, his best finish so far after qualifying a lowly 15th, but still well adrift of his teammate. His lack of success has been a worry to his former-champion father, Nelson, who has attended as many races as he could to give the boy moral support.
Briatore's response to the concerns over his driver's future only served to deepen doubts. "With Piquet it is not possible to tell whether he is happy or not," said the Italian," but what I can say is that it is difficult for him at the moment and we need to support him."
The writer is a motorsport expert based in England.
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