Whiff of expediency about Renault verdict

Paris: Renault escaped with a minimal penalty yesterday despite orchestrating one of motorsports' worst acts of cheating on record.

The FIA's World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) determined that covering expenses of the governing body's investigation and all the legal costs - estimated at a combined maximum of £750,000 (Dh4.46 million) - and making a 'significant' donation to safety work was sanction enough for race-fixing.

This is despite the team asking their driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, to crash his car, risking his life and that of others, to distort the outcome of last year's Singapore Grand Prix so their star racer, Fernando Alonso, could win.

There is, of course, the distant threat of a permanent ban if, between now and the end of the 2011 season, Renault decide to try their luck by committing a similarly despicable act of sporting fraud. But it will disappoint those demanding punitive censure after a sporting few months bedevilled by rugby's 'Bloodgate' controversy and football's diving debate.

The only culprits whose crimes were severely punished were team principal Flavio Briatore, who may yet be drummed out of football club Queens Park Rangers (QPR), and his No 2, Pat Symonds. They left Renault last week in shame.

Back to Renault and the leniency afforded to them. The WMSC's explanation excused their indulgence to them thus: "Renault's breaches [were of] unparalleled severity. Renault's breaches compromised not only the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet Jr himself. The WMSC considers that offences of this severity merit permanent disqualification from the F1 world championship.

"However, having regard to the points in mitigation and, in particular, the steps taken by Renault to identify and address failings within their team and condemn the actions of the individuals involved, the WMSC have decided to suspend Renault's disqualification until the end of the 2011 season."

Wise justice or convenient whitewash? Ron Dennis, then McLaren team principal, would ask why the company of which he was then chairman were fined £50 million for having Ferrari technical data and Renault have escaped so lightly? McLaren's duplicity was never going to cost lives, after all.

That said, Dennis had protested through crocodile tears that his honour was being unfairly impugned. There was, therefore, no way of putting an end to McLaren's cheating while he was in post. However, there remains a whiff of expediency about Renault's light treatment.

There was commercial sense in Renault staying in F1, an undertaking Max Mosley, the FIA president who chaired yesterday's meeting, said had been given by the French manufacturers. Business considerations aside, they would otherwise, surely, have been fined, say, £10 million or more. That might have acted as some vague deterrent.