The Singapore Grand Prix first came onto the racing calendar in 1966 and was originally held at Thomson Road, which is where it remained until 1973. The Singapore race made a comeback to the F1 calendar in 2008 as the first ever Formula 1 night race and it was held at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. The 2008 Singapore Grand Prix went into the F1 history books for all the wrong reasons after bearing witness to an action-packed race with 6 DNF’s and an incident known today as “Crashgate”.
The race started with 19 competitors after Giancarlo Fisichella in the Force India Ferrari failed to start the race. The grid line up for Sunday’s race saw a front row of Felipe Massa in the Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren. The second Ferrari, driven by reigning world champion, Kimi Räikkönen took P3 with Robert Kubica in P4. It is vital to note that Fernando Alonso started the race in P15 for Renault, with his teammate Nelson Piquet behind him in P16.
It was Massa and Hamilton who were in close contention for the 2008 drivers world championship and the Singapore GP was offering valuable points. The lights went out and the first lap was a relatively tame one with Massa taking the lead after Hamilton was forced to defend against Räikkönen from behind.
On lap 15, Piquet crashed at turn 17, hitting the wall and bouncing across the track into the wall of the straight. At the time Piquet claimed the crash was a simple mistake and that was it for his night. The crash was noted by the stewards as a racing incident and no further action was taken on the driver or team. The accident location was a difficult place to recover a car from so the safety car was brought out and the pitlane was closed.
In 2008, F1 cars had to be refuelled during pitstops as they didn’t carry enough for the whole race. This caused problems during the race as Rosberg and Kubica were forced to come into the pit to refuel while the pitlane was shut, leaving them both with 10 second stop-go penalties to handle during their next pitstops.
After the first safety car period, it was Rosberg who led the race after race leader Felipe Massa had taken off from his pitstop with his refuelling hose still attached! The Ferrari light system had been having issues all season and once again didn’t work, he received a green light at the wrong time causing him to drive off with the hose attached. This resulted in complete pitman mayhem and brought Massa out in last place, leaving him with a lot of ground to make up. While the pitstop chaos was taking place, Fernando Alonso had made it up to p5.
On lap 51 Adrian Sutil crashed due to the water that had been thrown onto the circuit moments before. Massa’s race had continued to get worse after the fuel hose incident as he later spun and hit the padded barriers, launching rainwater from earlier in the day onto track. This accident brought out a second safety car and with Rosberg taking his 10 second time penalty, Alonso had made his way up to P1 and began leading the race. When the safety car ended, Hamilton and Rosberg were fighting with each other for position which allowed Alonso to get further up the road.
Kimi Räikkönen hit the wall 4 laps from the end and the resulting yellow flags meant Alonso could sail to victory in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix followed by Rosburg in P2 and Hamilton in P3. Massa finished in a disappointing 13th place.
The Singapore GP came across like any other for the next year, it had been an exciting and action filled race that saw neither title contender win. However, all changed after the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. Renault fired Piquet and he did not go quietly. Soon after the news broke to the public, he claimed that his accident in Singapore was not, in fact, an accident but he had been instructed to crash to allow Alonso to move to a better position.
Renault insisted it would deny all charges but in a quick turnaround before the trial, decided it would not contest the charges and announced managing director, Flavio Briatore, and executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, had quit the team. At the FIA hearing, Renault was disqualified from F1 and suspended for two further years. Briatore was suspended from all Formula 1 and FIA-sanctioned events indefinitely, whilst Symonds received a five-year ban. In a French court in January 2010, both bans were overturned however both men agreed not to work in F1 or FIA events henceforth.
Do you think the crash was an accident or a dangerous tactic, leave your thoughts in the comments below?
Written by Cesca.
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