Its out. ING Renault F1 Team has been given a 2 year suspended ban from FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

Pat Symonds has been given a 5 year suspension from FIA.

Flavio Briatore has been given an ‘unlimited’ ban from FIA.

As all of you racing junkies know, Crashgate has set a new all time low for motor racing, specifically F1. Never has the sport seen such a level of cheating before which ultimately resulted in the unlimited lifetime ban for Flavio Briatore, and the 5 year ban for Pat Symonds.

Looking at it from a fan’s point of view, Renault F1 got off very lightly. Some of us have dubbed it the “Great Renault Escape”, and find it extremely unfair especially to the fact that they weren’t fined. If we go back 2 years ago to the ‘Spygate’ incident, McLaren were found to be in the wrong and fined $100 million with their championship points stripped.

Renault on the other hand received a ban which is now suspended for 2 years (this meaning that the FIA withdraws its’ ban but will enforce it if Renault commit a similar or equally serious offense within 2 years), with no fine, and no points stripping. It doesn’t take an aerodynamicist or a rocket scientist to see the contrast here. And if you are seeing it from my point of view, all I can conclude was that a legendary English team got one of the heaviest penalties of all time, while a French auto giant got the lightest penalties of all time. Very one sided when you take into account that the FIA is also French to begin with!

From a F1 driver’s perspective, a driver should not have been irresponsible to allow anyone to talk you into crashing your car. In the Crashgate case, it was the inaugural Singapore GP night race. NPJ (Nelson Piquet Jnr.) to me has lost his credibility and employability due to his irresponsible act.

Crashing your car purposely and deliberately at a street circuit in a night race? never mind fixing the race, but take into consideration that at that particular corner at that particular time, a crane was not placed for obvious reasons due to the Singapore circuit’s nature. When studied at a racing driver’s perspective, you shouldn’t be careless at that corner. There was no way a sane and concentrated driver would have loose control there unless there was a catastrophic mechanical failure or an equally catastrophic scenario i.e. a pile up. This is where the question “Where was ‘Witness-X’ to blow the whistle?” comes about among fans. I won’t touch that issue yet as of now.

NPJ ultimately put his life at risk, but also the lives of other people involved. There are 19 other drivers on the grid who were endangered. There were spectators’ lives risked, and not to forget the track marshals and FIA stewards’ lives too. This act alone was more than enough to have an F1 driver’s FIA Superlicense to be immediately revoked. Lo and behold, NPJ was granted immunity as a whistle-blower. Can you smell the one-sided-ness of this mess?

Ok, we can never put the blame for this solely on NPJ. The blame must be equal towards Symonds and Flavio too. I mean when you have a reputation in motorsport for over a decade (2 decades for Flavio), you should’ve lived through the era of Ayrton Senna, and the ill-fated 1994 San Marino GP weekend. As persons who witnessed that GP weekend, you should know better of the consequences of putting your drivers and grid compatriots at risk.

Too bad then for Flavio. My only message to Mr. Briatore and Mr. Symonds is that no matter how illustrious and revered your careers are in F1, you should’ve have known better. Nobody, even the fans, want to see revered professionals in F1 leave this way. Also, nobody in the community would want to see any driver suffer the same fate or an even worse one.

As a die hard fan of the sport, I only wish for the FIA to take future matters seriously and not try to ‘contain’ it anymore. We, the fans, have seen the demise of Honda F1, and this season we see the departure of BMW. Both occurred due to the current recession in the world economy. The sport, and the fans especially, do not need another scandal to ruin this recession-hit sport.

I only hope that the sport will maintain to be what it has always been, the elite series of the driving-sport. No matter the scandals and tragedies, it will always be slowly faded away into the history books as a reminder to all of us, by the sweet roars of 800 horsepowers at 300km/h. I only wish fans all around will share the statement I am providing below:

KEEP RACING FREE OF POLITICS AND SCANDAL-GATES!

by:

Tareeq.

http://djtareeq89.tumblr.com

Die-hard racing fan.

*if you love racing, show your support on Tumblr by reblogging this.*

Ok, I know there are plenty of you racing junkies out there who are into Formula 1.

Here’s a perfect tool for you guys whenever you guys watch Qualifying or Raceday live. Its the official FIA Timing Board streamed live over the internet.

The black board here is the exact same thing screened at all team Pit-Wall tents during Practice Sessions, Qualifying, and Raceday. This is the very crucial laptime data that is fed to race engineers.

To make it neater, it comes with plenty more features such as weather info, Lap Charts, and other misc. info relevant to the GP.

The commentary box on the right is a text feed from www.Formula1.com and is based on real time information from FIA Race Control.

Thanks to this, your laptop and an internet connection greatly improves your live Raceday at home experience.

It is available at this link:

http://www.formula1.com/live_timing/live_timing.html

Just give it a try for the final two races and see how it goes =)

Alright, here I have the permutations of the current Drivers’ World Championship and Constructors’ Championship permutations for the coming weekend’s Japanese GP.

Drivers Championship

Button will win the championship at this event if :

• He finishes 1st, and Barrichello finishes lower than 3rd.
• He finishes 2nd, and Barrichello finishes lower than 5th.
• He finishes 3rd, and Barrichello finishes lower than 7th.
• He finishes 4th, and Barrichello is out of the points.

• If Button finishes 5th, the championship battle will go onto Brazil.
• If Vettel finishes lower than 3rd, he is out of the championship battle.
• If Barrichello finishes on the podium, the championship will continue, regardless of Vettel’s and Button’s position.

Constructors Championship

If Brawn GP amass 13 points or more over Red Bull at this event, they will be confirmed as Constructor Champions.

If none of the above scenario happens, the Drivers’ title will go down the line in Brazil, just like last year. Personally, the coming final 3 races are surely to be something to watch.

Alright, here’s the current standing for now in Suzuka.

Liuzzi will take a 5 place penalty for a gearbox swap.

Mark Webber did not start qualifying due to a practice accident and will start from the pits or the back.

This session has seen at least 1 yellow flag and 2 red flags due to incidents involving Jaime Alguersuari,Timo Glock, Sebastien Buemi, and Heikki Kovalainen.

More coming up soon. For more info, visit http://www.formula1.com or http://fone.tumblr.com .

Anxiously awaiting for the announcement. Place your bets ladies and gents.

Choices:

1. Jarno Trulli

2. Fairuz Fauzy

3. Jacques Villenueve

4. Kamui Kobayashi

5. Heikki Kovalainnen.

Tony Fernandes and 1Malaysia Lotus will announce in a press conference today, 14 December 2009.

What are your predictions?

Who or what will be your ideal pair?