During the course of the 2009 Formula 1 season, a driver for the Renault team, Nelson Piquet, Jr, who had recently been released by the team, accused Renault team princpal Flavio Briatore of race fixing. Specifically, the dismissed Brazilian driver alleged the Briatore, and Renault engineering chier Pat Symonds, had coerced Piquet into deliberately crashing his car in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, in order to bring out a safety car. As a result of the safety car deployment, owing to the team’s pit stop strategy, Renault’s lead driver, two-time world champ Fernando Alonso, was able to vault to the race lead. Alonso eventually won the race.
Both Briatore and Symmonds initially denied the allegations, although Pat Symmonds at the …