The Deliberate Crash That Changed Formula 1

what if that night didn't happen what if things were different can I do anything about it should I change the outcome all these thoughts running through one man's mind in the year 2023 of something that happened 15 years earlier something that had nothing to do with the two main protagonists that year something that to this day remains one of the darkest moments in Formula One history thank you [Music] by the time September 2008 had come about the Battle for the Formula One World Championship was heating up between the young sensation of Lewis Hamilton and McLaren and Felipe Massa at Ferrari we were four rounds away from the end of the season and already things were getting tense in Belgium Hamilton was denied a win through to some I guess you could say Stern views of the rule book but whatever one's viewpoint on that whole ordeal whether right or wrong Massa inherited the win that day lame's history and now Hamilton and Massa were virtually neck and neck in the standings heading into round 15. in Singapore there's a buzz in the air and a sense of excitement this will be the first Formula One race ever held in Singapore and the first Formula One race ever to be held under lights the prospect of racing at night time raised a few questions how will the temperature and the humidity affect the race well the track lights blind the drivers could Kazuki Nakajima resist the urge to have his usual accident a few unknowns heading into the weekend and with a championship on the line and made it all the more palpable just under 3.2 miles in length and boasting 23 Corners it did have some interesting track characteristics that no one had ever really seen before such as a section of track passing underneath the grandstand which on the surface of things did look a little bit perilous any concerns however would be allayed the racetrack was as safe as safe can be although not quite as safe as a subscription to search exactly PN yeah I had to do that didn't I as you may have already 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money-back guarantee as well so what the bloody hell are you waiting for I would also like to thank surfshark for their continued support of the channel without them many a projects would not be possible so take it from me and give them a try okay let's get back to him the first practice session was led by Hamilton sending the Benchmark for the weekend although in the next two practice sessions it would be the Renault of Fernando Alonso who would take the top honors this wasn't too much of a concern to Hamilton nor Madison considering Alonso was not in contention for the championship which was strange because Alonso is a driver who should always be in contention for the championship and he was with Renault that year who did help guide him to Two World Championships in 2005 and 2006. after Alonso left for McLaren in 2007 however Renault started to drown their lineup of hiki cover London and John color physically was not taking the pride of France to the promised land Reno were getting toward the stage where they were thinking uh do we want to be in Formula One anymore so knowing that alonso's tenure and McLaren was about as much fun as being thrown off a cliff Renault took him back in for 2008 driving alongside new boy Nelson PK Jr PK may have shared his name with his father but that's about where it ended in some ways that's a good thing but Nelson PK senior is an all-time great of the sport for a reason his ability behind the wheel was beyond question whatever you may have thought of him off the track when he was on it the ability was undeniable living up to his name on track is almost an impossibility and for junior that was kind of proving to be the case Alonso was leaving him for dead most of the time although he would get a Podium at the Hockenheim ring Midway through the season which surely would have instilled some confidence in him from the Renault hierarchy right in qualifying Massa took Pole Position by a Heller margin over Lewis and Ferrari teammate Kimmy raikkonen behind them was Robert kibitzer and the BMW Sauber cover leinen and the other McLaren Nick heitfeld in the other BMW selber and Sebastian Vettel who noisily put his Toro Rosso into Seventh Place proving to everyone in the paddock that he might deserve a future just maybe where was Alonso in all of this well he was down in 15th his car having failed him Midway through qualifying had that not he was looking good for a start on at least the third row and made even the second one boy was paddling that car that weekend but at least he got to share the pain with his teammate who was down in 16th Place though the only problem that particular car had was the person who was driving it Rena therefore had both cars starting the race from the back of the Grid on a circuit that didn't look promising for passing and in a car that wasn't a million bucks either but it didn't matter the team apparently hatched a brilliant plan that would give them the best possible opportunity to score points and maybe even go one better race day nice the first F1 race held under lights and a close Championship battle this was exciting although for Nelson pique Jr it was a little too exciting seen here doing donuts on the formation lap of all things but hey for all we know this could have just been his unique method of warming his ties up whatever works for him I guess out got the lights and away they go 61 laps to determine the winner and immediately massive staking his claim he began to gradually eke out a margin over Hamilton this was a day or night that Massa would prove to everyone that he was a worthy Championship Contender or as James Allen so eloquently put it but it's certainly a day for Felipe Massa to convince any remaining Skeptics that he deserves a teat a seat running away to almost certain Victory provided everything goes to plan whatever that plan may be whatever renault's plan was however was confusing everybody because on lap 12 they pitted Alonso now they did put in a sum total of three tablespoons of fuel into the car to start that race and thus with refueling still allowed back then would mean that a lighter car with the super soft tires at the start of the race would allow for him to pass more cars more quickly or at least that's how it would work on paper but as Mercedes learned in the last two years paper can be a line the strategy was and the words of Martin brundle rather bizarre which is a violently British way of saying they've gone back Alonso did make up three spots in the opening lap a pretty good start but after that he wound up stuck behind Kazuki Nakajima who thus far was avoiding the temptation to have his usual accident and driving to the standard that we know Kazuki is capable of as was Jano truly up ahead although that just meant that he was holding everyone up in one long painful ribbon of Hell known to you and I as the truly train everyone in that damn train was laughing five seconds of Life slower than Masa Alonso right now is cursing that paper that the strategy was on this is not working and now here he was in the pits very freaking early this strategy better pay off but how could it ever the damage was done Alonso was going to need one hell of a miracle to pull himself out of this mud and then just moments later Sebastian borde went off he rejoined the race no harm done one lap went by two laps did not go by before Nelson pique's Tire warming methods on the warm-up lap pay dividends with him slamming his gearbox into the wall on lap 14. two laps after Alonso had made his unique pit stop because of where his car was this brought out the safety car and now all hell broke loose because this close to pit Lane leaving most out there stranders and their strategies and if you were desperate for fuel or a piss like Nico rosberg was and you had to come into the pit Lane it would mean a 10 second drive-through penalty aside from Alonso the two red bulls of Mark Webber and David Coulthard did make a pit stop before the safety car came out as did the Honda of Reuben's barracella although perhaps sensing the fishiness of the whole situation parakeella's engine made a weird metallic sound which was the engine's way of saying to Rubens walk home Punk finally the pit Lane was open there would be pain though especially for Masa and this pain would be known as Ferrari foreign mechanics released him too early the green light clearing NASA before refueling was done dragging the fuel hose down the pit Lane with him this wasn't the most aerodynamic of additions to the car nor was it very legal this also killed his race as by the time the mechanics ran down took it off the car and released him back into the field he had dropped right down to the very back he'd be dropped even further back when the stewards decided that Dragon of fuel hose down the pit Lane and being released into the path of Adrian suitable was unsafe I mean PC Malarkey and health and safety is is getting out of control it wasn't the first time either that Ferrari's semi-automatic light system caught them out in the pit stops their faith in Italian Electronics was not paying off rosberg was out in front but he would be getting a penalty for putting under the safety car ditto too for kobitsa that meant that Alonso who was now in fifth would be right in the hunt but there was still truly in physical ahead of him it didn't matter a hell of a lot because all those ahead of Alonso had to make another pit stop when all was said and done when the checkered flag was waived for another Alonso won the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix a tremendous effort from p15 to finish first almost too good to be true it's an irony isn't it that without that fuel line falling off in qualifying and being backing 15th on the grid forcing them to do an unusual strategy that worked perfectly when the safety car came out because the other Renault hit the wall it's uh it's played into his hand either Martin knew exactly what was going on here or blood has seen way too many movies there were actually more than a few that thought all of this was a bit fishy but I mean come on no team would ever deliberately crash one of their cars just so the other one might have a sniffic victory I mean that's just too much of a stretch right massive meanwhile drowned after his penalty whilst Hamilton finished in third useful points of many that he used to propel himself to his first world drivers championship and absolutely God damn deserved first world drivers championship for NASA it was a bit of pill to swallow but as of now there was nothing to argue Midway through his contract Nelson PK was dropped by Renault it was a tumultuous into the relationship with both parties at each other's throats team boss Flavio briatore criticizing PK for not getting enough points PK [ __ ] by claiming that Flav had eaten said points he was replaced by romargo Jean for the rest of the season which went well and the world moved on without PK for a few days him having come to the conclusion that if they're gonna ditch me like that I'm gonna take all of them down he went to the FIA and reported that for the Singapore Grand Prix the previous year he was ordered to crash on purpose by Renault okay okay this is not good but for now all of this can be kept Under Wraps the public doesn't need to know about this provided investigative journalists don't know ah on August 30th news broke of the intentional wrecking and now everyone involved was quaking like a pug on angel dust just a few days later the FIA laid the smackdown on Renault directly accusing them of manufacturing a deliberate crash during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix a few days after that PK made his second of two statements to the FIA whilst at the same time his first statement was leaked by the press this did not appear to be a fake and Rhino got pretty damn cranky and began legal action against the PKS commencing criminal proceedings claiming these allegations were false and all of this was an attempt to Blackmail so that Nelson could keep a seat for the remainder of 2009 whatever their attitude was However the fact was that briatori and Pat Simmons were being roped together in a very serious allegation of race fixing here this was the 1937 Tripoli Grand Prix all over again Simmons was offered immunity if he became a rat and he would lay down a bombshell by claiming the crash was all PK's idea then the radio transcripts came out that showed a great deal of vagueness and Pat Simmons dialogue and Flav dishing out language used in his Heyday dealing counterfeit Armani jackets in the Mediterranean on the 16th of September Renault reveals they would not contest the allegations and that Simmons and briatori would be gone effective immediately from the team this spoke volumes effectively implicating that both these dudes were directly responsible for all of this almost an omission of guilt call it what you want rioturi claims he had nothing to do with any of it and that he merely resigned to save the team which by the way were getting raked over the coals as you would imagine the World Motorsports council meeting still took place and Renault were handed the punishment a disqualification for the Renault team suspended two years so in a roundabout way they were on probation they could continue on as per usual in the Formula One World Championship but if they screw up one more time before 2011 later boy Simmons was banned for five years what's briatori was given an indefinite ban riotori was also banned from managing any F1 drivers for the foreseeable future his insistence on his innocence killed him in this instance poetry Alonso was cleared of any wrongdoing with there being no evidence that despite benefiting from a very suspect strategy and being the driver in the very center of it all he actually had anything to do with it it was also someone who went by the name of witness X A Renault employee who disgusted with what happened relayed everything to the FIA after back and forth legal Gaga riatori's indefinite ban was lifted both he and Simmons were eventually allowed back into the Panic come 2013. the PK's won a liable lawsuit against Renault in December 2010 and the two main sponsors of Renault ended their agreements with Renault before the year was up Reno themselves who were already contemplating quitting Formula One almost certainly had had enough at this point even though on that day they did get the win and they would keep that win and everyone who got points that day kept their points knew that it may have cost him the title but seeing as how it was a year after the facts Massachusetts accepted it for what it was until years later when the old man opened his mouth [Music] Bernie Eccleston revealed that they had known about the race fixing Scandal before the 2008 season had ended but decided not to do anything about it so as to avoid a major Scandal saying that effectively once Lewis set his hands on the trophy at the awards Gala it was set in stone Massa heard these comments and thoughts wait hold on what the actual hell and then those questions posed earlier came flooding back all at once what if that night hadn't happened what if things were different can I do anything about it should I change the outcome as of the making of this video he's looking to do just that personally I hope nothing comes of it but the anger felt it's certainly understandable one man's dream potentially destroyed by another man's desperation we feel bad for Masa we feel conflicted with Lewis we feel indifferent with Nando but the fact that we're still talking about this race that it affected history that it could still affect history says it all this incident that we call crash gate truly did change Formula One forever foreign [Music]

Channel: Josh Revell

Views: 692,411

Keywords: f1, formula 1, f1 2008, formula 1 2008, 2008 singapore grand prix, crashgate, renault f1, race fixing, deliberate crash, nelson piquet, nelson piquet jr, flavio briatore, fia, 2008 singapore gp, massa, felipe massa, massa singapore

Id: dwsiB_PGJsI

Length: 16min 20sec (980 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 17 2023