Can Sports Betting Fans Trust Formula 1 After Crashgate?

Formula 1 fan will be dismayed at the recent discovery of a race fixing scandal involving Nelson Piquet Junior, former team boss Flavio Briartore and Pat Symonds, the director of engineering for the Renault team. The ruling from the FIA has determined that the above parties were responsible for a plan that deliberately asked Piquet to crash his car in a race so the outcome of the race would favour Alonso.

Alonso apparently knew nothing of the plan to have Piquet Jnr crash his car. Unfortunately whilst Piquet Jnr has been granted immunity from prosecution in return for telling all regarding the scandal he will not be offered any further drives in Formula 1. Although he would have been under pressure as a young driver to deliberately crash a car at the request of his team, this request would still seem improper and alien to the other drivers on the grid. The element of deception would have been enough to get a firm rejection from most other drivers. Piquet Jnr has released an apologetic statement, but should have refused the request in the first place. He has now undermined his sport, his fellow drivers and racing fans who want to see a true result.

The immediate aftermath of the scandal sees Renault being handed a one year suspended ban sentence meaning they will not face expulsion from Formula 1 unless they repeat the offence before 2011. Flavio Briartore has been indefinitely banned from the sport and even his involvement with QPR in football is now under scrutiny.

Sports betting fans have also lost out. There must now be serious questions made by punters whether they continue to bet on the sport in the wake of such manipulation with the race result. Speaking as a sports betting fan, it is easy to say “never bet on F1 again”, but sports betting fans of F1 can take solace that the scandal was revealed by the driver and prompt, decisive action taken to remove the guilty parties from the sport. Most drivers would not partake in such actions and Formula 1 have (rightly or wrongly) decided to place the blame solely on Briartore and Symonds, suggesting they believe that the scandal is not a reflection on the Renault team but on the corruption of a small group of people.

It is always a shame when we find out that our bets are not being played out fairly. We expect that sports participants win or lose on the day rather than planning clever tactics to win different battles. Unfortunately where there is big money involved there is always the exposure to potential corruption in any sport. Football match fixing, snooker match fixing, bungs, ball tampering in cricket, horse racing scandals and now deliberate crashing in racing puts further doubt in peoples mind whether a fair match in sport is a utopian ideal. It must be pointed out, however, that there are very few instances of any scandals.

As most matches in all sports are contested fairly we can leave the disciplining of bad practise to the authorities and expect they deal with such happenings severely. What would be far worse for Formula 1 would be if they had given Briartore a warning and let him carry on. For the benefit of Formula 1 all three guilty parties are now removed from the sport and it is better off without them. We can now watch honest racers like Alonso, Hamilton, Button, Vettel and others race their cars with all their might and get fair results. In the wake of this scandal the viewers are owed that much.

By Malcolm Clarke