F1: Singapore Crashgate latest

In September 2009, the FIA offered Nelson Piquet jr immunity from any action against him personally in return for his telling the full story about how he came to crash in the Singapore GP the previous year, helping his then team-mate Fernando Alonso to victory.

What Piquet had to say shook the sport to its foundations.

The Renault F1 team fought dirty alleging that Piquet and his father, former F1 world champion, had cooked up the story to make Piquet's crash seem less like a mistake of a driver in his maiden season.

But the FIA concluded that Flavio Briatorre, Renault Team Principal and Pat Symonds, Director of Engineering, had indeed ordered Piquet jr to crash.

On Monday, the Court was told that a press release issued by Renault alleged that the Piquet pair had made up the story in part "to blackmail [the Renault team] into allowing Mr Piquet to drive for the team for the remainder of the 2009 season and they [the Piquets] were therefore guilty of a serious criminal offence."

Renault capitulated in the action and made an apology in open court and is to pay an undisclosed figure exceeding GBP100,000 to settle the Piquet's legal costs and for libel damages.

Piquet jr is clear about the events: in an interview with The Times he said that he had been ordered to crash on lap 14 and showed a plan of the circuit and told to crash at a specific corner because there were no cranes there. He had been subject to heavy criticism for his performance that season but the team gave him a contract for 2009 - albeit one that was heavily loaded against him. Briatore being both the team principal and Piquet's manager provided a clear conflict of interest. The contract banned him from discussing joining a rival team but let Renault release him on a whim. When they did so, perhaps in a fit of pique, he went to the FIA and told them his story. There was no challenging his commitment: "I felt in control of the car throughout the crash," he told The Times.

But the entire situation left Piquet Jr out in the cold. He failed to find a seat for the rest of 2009 and for 2010 as teams appeared to close ranks against the young driver who says he would be stronger now if such a suggestion were put to him but, in the position where his entire professional life was in Briatore's hands, as a young driver put under pressure over a period of several hours, he wilted.