Simple question. Please discuss. Both of course involve a certain bushy-eyebrowed Spaniard. To me the spygate scandal was more damaging and the participants guilty of more serious violations of the rules. If it were not for Alonso's status as reining WDC at the time and his marketability in certain key countries, he would have been banned for a year, IMO. The intentional crash was incredibly unsportsmanlike but Bernie has some responsibility by holding a race at a venue where it would be so easy to game the safety car rules.
Spying always happens, but Mclaren went overboard with it. However, the crash-gate will definitely be bigger scandal. Lives was at stake here. I really can't believe how FIA left that young idiot unpunished.
In football or basketball, it is one thing to send somebody with a cell-phone cam to your opponents practice sessions. It is quite something else again to deliberately throw a game to make your bookie happy.
Unless you believe, as I do, that neither penalty comes close to fitting the transgression: McLaren's much too severe; Renault's much too lenient.
Different thing altogether, imho - Spygate was worse from a technical perspective of course, stealing all the information about the opponent's car is as bad as it gets. Crashgate is on another level, as the health and life of people, especially spectators, was potentially at stake.
Well, you know the good ole boys from NASCAR always say 'If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'" Why should F1, or any race series with arbitrary and fluctuating rules, be any different?
Alonso is not the issue there, IMO. Yes, he was involved in both incidents and I'm not too high on the guy right now. Quite the opposite. But. The real outrage is the double standard demonstrated by the so called "governing body" of the "sport". What a bad joke they have become. Mosley is corrupt and the FIA clowns are just Mosley's puppets without balls. And no one will ever convince me that Mosley isn't on ****** bag Bernie's payroll. I cannot believe that I'm still planning to go to (at least) Montreal next year but I like the spectacle and party of the race weekend even if it is built around a totally corrupt contest...<sigh> Come to think of it, maybe Alonso realizes the same thing and he is just exercising his survival skills. For what he gets paid, reputation means peanuts.
A question of degree doesn't change the basic assumption that McLaren pulled the bigger job. Still the real telling result is both teams continue to appear on the grid... CH
It appears that people still have a general problem on comprehending the penalty issue: McL. went out of their way to try to deny it ever happened. Major manager positions were involved and had constructive knowledge that those plans existed, where they were coming from and that they were being used or should have been assumed to have been used. For taht the penalty to the company as a whole was severe. Mainly to assure that no other team or manufacturer ever EVER gets the idea of doing this again if the penalty is only a few bucks and a slap on the wrist. Renault management did not have any knowledge as demonstrated in the meetings held prior and once it became clear that it actually did happen they immediately said they will take the blame and took immediate actions. This was cooked up by two people Briatore and Symonds. In reality Briatore who then sold it to Symonds to sell it to Nelson. As such the manufacturer had already taken the blame before they were even accused by the F1 governing body. They were proactive about their involvement. As such their fine is reduce heavily and since their management was not involved or had a shread of knowledge why should they pay? As for Alonso, you may think whatever you want on crashgate. The evidence speaks clearly that he must have known but it certainly is not convictable evidence. As for his involvement in Spygate that is without a doubt clear that he was fully involved in that, he was simply let off because he, just as Nelson Jr., became the person to spill the beans. Which then makes no more sense that some here want Nelson burned on the stake while waiving the Alonso flag. As a reigning two-time F1 Champion at he time of Spygate, he was certainly not under pressure to lose his race seat. So if you want to burn a witch...in spanish it is called "bruja".
It's hard to say. If you include the attempted sabotage of the Ferrari on the track, Spygate seems worse. But, if you consider what the possibilities were for an intentional crash -- injuries to Piquet, other cars on the track, spectators, track officials -- crashgate is worse. I think that's what's so shocking about this. No one wants to crash. It's dangerous. You never know the outcome. Look at Dale Earnhart's demise -- did it look anything unusual? He was playing around to get his kid a better chance to win and ended up playing his last hand. Massa nearly got his head taken off from a loose spring on the track. To me crashgate is worse or potentially worse. And, I never agreed with the McLaren $100m fine -- way overkill.
The Mclaren fine was so way out of proportion as to be impossible to rationalize. Even more fascinating is that they paid. How much money is involved in F1 when a team can blithely pay $100 million and continue, without any apparent financial strain, doing business as usual? If that kind of money is chump change, then it becomes easier to see the motivation to cheat and win.
I think there is spying and doing un ethical stuff during a race, and then lying about doing it when its obvious? First with Mclaren and Ferrari... back in the 50's -70's teams used to copy everything from each other... that was just the way it was... no big deal, monocoque, wings, ground effects, etc... everybody tried to copy the best design... I think its a bit different when you have the actual drawings on a cad file... but still kind of the same thing. now when you are caught red handed and deny and conspire about it... that is when it get worse... but that is just a reflection of society at large... Clinton, Maddoff, steroids in baseball, etc.... we lie to get out of responsibility and minimize the down side, max the up! its the Wall Street mentality, and when you are in the ****, blame somebody else. pass the buck!
By your own logic then the $100M fine could not have been way out of proportion since they did pay and continued. You are contradicting yoursef there. A fine is levied based on the fact that it is supposed to make you hurt when you pay it to discourage you and others to follow your bad first example.
If we are really looking at a hierarchy of sins here then Crashgate is the greater offense since to put lives at risk. The penalties apportioned by the FIA have no bearing in that the organization itself is corrupt.
A little industrial espionage pales in comparison with recklessly putting lives in jeopardy for the sake of a win at a (alleged) sporting event. But that's just me....
The fact that the fine was paid has no bearing on whether or not it was reasonable. Paying a penalty is not something that the punished party merely "agrees" to do if he deems it reasonable and appropriate. If I get a $500 fine for a traffic violation I am very likely to pay it whether or not I believe it to be reasonable, even though I would easily be able to "continue."
There is no contradiction. The amount of the fine seems absurd to rational people, but obviously it was not, and obviously it didn't hurt Mclaren in the way it was intended. The point is that there is obviously so much money to be made in F1 that it makes cheating worthwhile to those teams who obviously cheat, as they are caught doing it. F1 is not a sport, as a previous poster alluded to. It is huge business with billions being spent and billions at stake for successful teams. To paraphrase a well known idiom, money corrupts and huge amounts of money corrupts hugely.
As a long-time McLaren hater I can't believe I'm saying this but I think Crashgate is the worse, simply because lives were put at risk by the actions of one greedy, spoilt individual. Also, the question was 'which is the bigger scandal?'. I think that Crashgate has received more media coverage than Spygate so surely that means it is the bigger scandal?
Which team would have gained the greater advantage from their sin? A stunt that had a possible effect on a single race or gaining technical knowledge that had the potential to improve performance for the team throughout a season or longer? The question at the start here was 'which is bigger'. CH
The question is: What is "bigger"? More people involved? Spygate. More benefit for one team? Spygate. Seriousness of consequences? Crashgate.
MM said there is nothing worser than race fixing I'm surprised at NO financial fine. Not banning Piquet means nothing everyone knows his career is over with. Plus you got to give immunity to whistle blowers otherwise nobody would come forward