The race-fixing scandal involving the Renault F1 team is getting ugly with the team commencing legal proceedings against Nelson Piquet for defamation and blackmail following his bombshell accusations. The saga is only going to get uglier.

For the uninitiated, Renault have been accused of fixing the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix by allegedly ordering Nelson Piquet to crash on a specific lap in order to trigger a safety car, enabling teammate Fernando Alonso to maximise his pit strategy and go on to victory.

Following a huge fall-out between Nelson Piquet and Renault manager Flavio Briatore, Piquet has confessed that he, allegedly, was asked on the morning of the race to deliberately crash by Briatore and Pat Symonds in a damning leaked statement.

Renault are now facing an FIA hearing and possible expulsion from the championship if found guilty.

But the ramifications of the race-fixing allegations could run deeper.

Although FIA President Max Mosley has stated that it is too late for the results of the Singapore Grand Prix or world championship to be changed, if Renault is deemed to have fixed the race, there could be further legal proceedings.

The Singapore event was crucial in determining a championship that was decided on the final turn of the final lap of the final race of the season.

If Renault is disqualified from the Singapore results with Alonso stripped of his victory, the amended championship points would not significantly alter the drivers championship as Felipe Massa would still be out of the points and Lewis Hamilton would collect a further two.

But if it is deemed that Renault did deliberately ask Piquet to crash, could Ferrari or the like not take the matter to a court outside the jurisdiction of the FIA?

It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that such a case could be made considering how crucial the safety car period was in impacting the race results.

If it was fixed, surely the races results should be completely nullified.

As we have seen in Serie A, proof of cheating can lead to retrospective correcting of results and championships if the match-fixing is deemed substantial enough.

Even if such a scenario doesn’t eventuate, the damage is still immense.

Formula 1 is often perceived as a business first and a sport second.

This case is only reinforcing such perceptions to the general public.

And what of Renault?

As McLaren found out during ‘spygate’, the FIA isn’t afraid to hand out hefty and unpredictable punishments.

They’ll need to make an example of Renault and set a tough precedent to discourage all forms of race-fixing.

If not sent packing from the championship, a heavy penalty could still drive the manufacturer away from the sport, putting Fernando Alonso on the market and confusing an already unpredictable driver market.

And should Nelson Piquet, promised amnesty from the FIA for his admission, really go without punishment for allegedly acting on such instructions?

It is an incredibly messy and unfortunate situation, one that will vault F1 politics back into the headlines. Only recently had the political upheaval of the FIA V FOTA war, which dominated the majority of the season, subsided allowing the on-track action to take centre stage.

That on-track action has been as unpredictable as any Formula 1 season with six different winners in the past six races and teams such as Force India rising to prominence in an incredibly tight and competitive field.

It’s a shame therefore that F1 is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

F1’s ability to shock and surprise should never be underestimated.

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