Nelson Piquet Jr’s crash at the Singapore Grand Prix has become one of the most controversial talking points in Formula 1 and Rob Smedley has now provided his opinion on the event.
Smedley was Felipe Massa’s race engineer at Ferrari that year and it’s an incident that had a huge impact on his most successful season in F1.
Speaking on The Race Podcast, the former Jordan and Williams employee shared what was being talked about in the paddock when the Brazilian’s Renault found the barrier.
From the outside, Formula 1 can sometimes seem incredibly dull, especially last year when 20 cars would start a Grand Prix and two hours later the Dutch national anthem would play.
However, there have also been some incredibly controversial incidents including the race forever associated with Crashgate.
Nelson Piquet Jr. was Fernando Alonso’s teammate at Renault, and despite the Spaniard starting the race in 15th, he conjured up an incredible victory.
However, as Rob Smedley and many others at the time suspected, there was something off about the crash Nelson Piquet Jr. had on lap 13 that ultimately brought out the safety car.
Massa was winning the race at the time having started on pole position, but his strategy was ruined by the accident and he ended up finishing outside of the points.
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He thought he had done enough to win the title but a final corner overtake from Lewis Hamilton on Timo Glock at his home circuit in Interlagos.
Smedley shares his thoughts on Nelson Piquet Jr. crash in Singapore
Speaking about the incident, Smedley said: “How you crash there, I have no idea. I wouldn’t crash there, and I don’t go over 30 mph.
“I’ve got no idea how young Nelson crashed there, well we have got an idea of how he did.
“But I watched it live thinking, that’s strange and then you watch the replay and by the third replay you’re like OK I understand what’s happened now, this is fairly simple to work out.
“So, it wasn’t obvious straight after what had happened, then what the ramifications and the repercussions and how you gain justice and all the rest of it but I mean I don’t think there was anybody with any element of doubt, especially within my close circle within Ferrari, within the guys that we talked to in the paddock afterwards.
“And we said, well yeah, it’s pretty clear what happened there, so interesting one.”
Journalist Mark Hughes added: “Yeah, I mean it was pretty much universal elsewhere, nobody believed it, nobody believed it was genuine at the time.
“But it was one thing not believing it but another to do anything about it without having any solid evidence.”
The fallout from Crashgate is still ongoing
While Hamilton went on to win the first of seven Formula 1 titles at the time of writing, Massa would never mount a serious challenge again.
He has subsequently appealed the result of the championship all these years later, but it’s hard to see the decision overturned now.
Piquet Jr. left Renault after the Hungarian Grand Prix the following year and alleged that he had been told to deliberately crash his car on two different occasions.
Renault were charged with conspiracy and handed a suspended disqualification from Formula 1 as a result.
Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds were banned for their involvement although that was later overturned.
As Smedley describes, it was obvious to many in the paddock that something was off about Piquet Jr.’s crash.
He had spun at the exact point of the accident during the warm-up lap and it still remains one of the most controversial events in Formula 1 to this day.
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