Briatore's Lifetime Ban from Formula 1

Scandal is no stranger to the sport of Formula 1. Whether it is politics and the FIA, Schumacher's Rascasse incident of 2006 or the infamous McLaren-Mercedes espionage debacle of 2007, never has a season gone by without F1 drama making headlines worldwide. The most recent scandal however has resulted in Flavio Briatore's lifetime ban from all FIA sanctioned events. The incident that resulted in the FIA handing down its harshest of penalties to Briatore - team principal of Renault F1 since 2000 - is rooted in a crash involving Nelson Piquet Jr. and his seemingly untimely retirement during last season's Singapore Grand Prix.

After being stripped of his drivers seat this past July due to an unimpressive 2009 season, Piquet went to the FIA with allegations that team management (Flavio Briatore and Executive Director of Engineering Pat Symonds) had ordered the young driver to deliberately crash his car at a specific time during last seasons Singapore race. Following orders, Piquet spun and crashed his car on the exit to turn 17, forcing race control to deploy a safety car moments after Fernando Alonso - Piquet's Renault F1 team mate - had made a pivotal pit stop. Since the pit lane would close under the safety car, Fernando Alonso had gained valuable track position. Having a fully fueled car with fresh tires allowed Alonso, two-time world champion, to race longer and quicker with a clear track ahead once all other competitors pitted after the safety car came in and the race resumed under a green flag. Alonso would go on to win the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix with the help of Briatore and Symonds race manipulation, a form of cheating that F1 great Niki Lauda would describe as 'the worst thing to happen to Formula 1' in the 60 year history of the sport.

Briatore's biography is wrought out of controversy. Before his life in Formula 1, as the head of operations for the American division of Benetton clothing company, Briatore can be linked to numerous controversial advertisements in the US during the late 1980s. Since his inauguration in F1 as commercial director of Benetton Formula Ltd., Briatore introduced the world to Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso - both multiple championship winners - and already once been accused of cheating during the 1994 season. This most recent of scandals however resulted in a lifetime ban from the sport Briatore has been intimately involved with for the past 20 years. The conclusion to Briatore's career in F1 is one that no one involved with the sport will ever forget, and will go down in motor sport history as a scandal that not only endangered a driver and spectators, but the credibility of Formula 1 itself.