Formula 1 news

Piquet unemployable now, says Brundle

Former driver Martin Brundle believes that Nelson Piquet's recent race-fixing accusations against the Renault team and the subsequent controversy now make the driver unemployable in Formula One.

Ex-Renault pilot Piquet and father Nelson Sr. claim that team chiefs Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds planned a crash in Singapore last year in order to see the deployment of the Safety Car to assist other driver Fernando Alonso to race victory.

"The word in the paddock is that team boss Flavio Briatore will step away from F1 - possibly even before the hearing," television commentator Brundle told the BBC. "The sad thing is that the damage to F1 is already done because of the leaked information."

Brundle chats with fellow TV pundit Eddie Jordan

With Piquet managed by his triple World Champion father, Brundle feels the execution of their actions is a let down to the sport. "I'm disappointed in Piquet father and son," he continued. "Like many of us in the paddock, they have benefited enormously from being in the privileged inner sanctum of F1 and the boy's career opportunities and funding existed only because of F1.

"So, crashing deliberately in the first place, as he claims, and then lobbing this nuclear bomb into the paddock is not impressive to say the least; they've cut off their noses to spite their face because surely Nelson Piquet Jr is unemployable in F1 now. Which team and sponsor wants to be associated with all this? Anger has got the better of them here. F1, though, will survive it and move on."

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