So Flavio is out, sentenced to a life of billionaire excess with his super-model wife. Pat Symonds and Renault were banned for 5 years and two years respectively, but as Renault had the good sense to push Flavio and Symonds onto their own swords, their ban is suspended. As for Nelson Piquet Jr., the man who never was, he will need to be content with the knowledge that he took the cowards' way out...twice. So Renault F1 will not contest the allegations against them of race-fixing during last year's Singapore Grand Prix. Team boss Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds beat a hasty exit once they knew the game was up. For Renault, after all their years in F1, they end up with their valuable name and the word 'cheating' juxtaposed. It is a public relations nightmare.
The highly regarded CEO of Renault, Carlos Ghosn, whose sobriquet is 'Le Cost Killer', said they will not act irrationally in advance of the hearing by the FIA tomorrow. That roughly translates as 'this is the perfect opportunity to exit the sport'. Not only is it a get out of financial jail card, but with Renault's name tainted, they need to keep a low profile. Whether the manufacturer leaves of its own volition, or gets forced out by the FIA, remains to be seen.
It is inconceivable that their F1 lieutenants should have jeopardised Renault's reputation with such an outlandish plan to get one team-mate, Nelson Piquet Jnr, to deliberately crash out in order to help another team-mate, Fernando Alonso, win the race. That is taking race strategy beyond the pale.
Briatore forced this young driver to effectively hold a gun to his head in a game of Russian roulette and in doing so the Renault F1 boss lost all rationale and perspective. To treat people with such contempt, especially when they are already out there risking their lives, is pernicious.
Eddie Irvine doesn't see it like that and believes the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. "F1 has always been a war, and in war all is fair. When I was in various teams, you would do anything to win. In those days it was normal."
Well, when you enter the world of F1 you make a pact with the devil, but even Satan would raise an eyebrow at the tactics employed by Briatore.
It is also incredible that Piquet should accede to such a demand. When it was pointed out to him on a map of the circuit which part would be the most opportunistic to crash out, did he not say: 'You are asking me to crash into a wall and possibly kill myself, are you f****** crazy?'
There is also a conflict of interest. Flavio Briatore was not only his boss but also his manager. Piquet was hanging onto his drive by the skin of his teeth. Briatore put him in an impossible position -- do as I say or you're out. It is said that Briatore is regarded in the paddock with a mixture of fear, suspicion and envy. Sounds like he earned his spurs.
Was Flavio so naive as to think Piquet wouldn't go straight to the FIA with his little secret when he failed to renew the Brazilian's contract? So far we've had blackmail, threats of lawsuits and counter-threats. But Briatore sealed his own fate. The flamboyant 59-year-old Italian had become more famous for being in the gossip columns than for his day job. He had more supermodels than you could shake a carrot at. He had so many fingers in so many pies he'd run out of digits.
Apart from his Renault gig and managing the careers of Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen, he'd been hanging out on Billionaire's Boulevard, co-buying Queen's Park Rangers with Bernie Ecclestone and Lakshmi Mittal. He owns The Billionaire Club in Sardinia and Monte Carlo. He has a posh London restaurant, a nightclub and a Kenyan estate 'Lion under the Sun', frequented by Bono.
Last year he took time out to marry his girlfriend, a 29-year-old wonderbra model, though what first attracted her to the would-be-billionaire is not known. At least Flavio can now spend more time on his $68m super-yacht banishing his billionaire blues.
It wasn't all plain sailing for this self-made high-achiever. Back in the 1970s, he was an assistant to an Italian businessman who was later mysteriously killed by a car bomb, which had nothing to do with Briatore, but around the same time he was sentenced in the Italian courts to four and a half years in prison for fraud. He fled to a Caribbean island and that was the end of that.
Meeting Luciano Benetton when he worked at the Italian stock exchange was a watershed moment. He became a director of Benetton's US division and subsequently took over the reins of Benetton F1.
He pinched Michael Schumacher from under Eddie Jordan's nose and the German went on to win two drivers' titles in 1994 and '95 and gave Benetton their first constructors' championship in '95. In 2000, Renault purchased the Benetton team and Flavio's new charge, Fernando Alonso, won two drivers' and two constructors' championships.
Briatore fired Jenson Button in favour of Alonso and back then he commented: "Time will tell if I am wrong." Eddie Jordan and Briatore were close. They both enjoyed the partying and razzmatazz of F1. Flavio, in a show of friendship, once offered Eddie and his family the use of his Kenyan retreat. Eddie duly accepted and enjoyed the hospitality in the wonderful surroundings of this fabulous facility. Meanwhile, back in the UK, Briatore, it is alleged, worked overtime luring a sponsor away from Jordan. By the time Eddie returned from the holiday, the sponsor had switched teams. There are not many who can boast of pulling the wool over EJ's eyes.
In the 1980s, when there was a bomb scare close to where he lived in London, it turned out the IRA had abandoned a bomb outside his house.
Piquet described Briatore as his executioner, but it turned out to be the other way round. So after an illustrious career in F1, Briatore faces an uncertain future. He always said he didn't want to spend his dotage in F1 so he got what he wanted, albeit earlier than expected.
Next weekend we re-visit the scene of last year's crime, the Singapore Grand Prix. Remember it's a night race and the drivers' body clocks will have to adjust to strange racing times in a foreign time-zone. They will try to keep European hours which means eating dinner at 5am, a challenge in itself. The inaugural race proved a resounding success last year and the floodlit setting looked spectacular.
It's a pity there's a scent of scandal hanging over it. Though that's the least of their worries; the smog haze that has enveloped their city is a more immediate problem and one they hope will have gone by the weekend.
Brawn's Button and Barrichello will be fighting tooth and nail as their battle gets personal. Barrichello seems to be in the ascendancy having won again in Monza, while the money is on Button. But since it's Singapore, maybe it should be a case of 'all bets are off'.
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