Let’s say that the WMSC on Monday rules that yes, Renault did cheat at last year’s Singtel Singapore Grand Prix. Here’s what might happen.

The team will go instantly bankrupt as the FIA levies a massive fine (it has to be more than the $100m levied on McLaren, doesn’t it?) and every sponsor withdraws immediately, citing the reputational damage clauses that they have in their contracts. The 2009 season finishes with 18-car grids while Russian oligarchs mingle with Middle Eastern sheikhs in the queue to buy the team with the small change they have in their pockets. So far, so normal for the wild roller-coaster that is modern-day F1.

The FIA goes further though, and disqualifies Renault from the Singapore race. Rather than declare Nico Rosberg, who finished immediately behind Alonso, the winner, the FIA cruelly denies Williams its first race win in years by awarding the race to Felipe Massa, who was leading at the time of the safety car deployment in the wake of Nelson Piquet Jr‘s crash, that allowed Fernando Alonso to go on to “win”. So Massa is retrospectively awarded 10 points, which means he’s earned enough to win the 2008 World Championship. Lewis Hamilton hands over the trophy and the title without so much as a whimper.

What a mess. What’s the solution? Who’d be a judge on the WMSC? Not me.

By Scott Garrett on September 17th, 2009

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