The driver at the centre of F1's race-fix row, Nelson Piquet, has been granted immunity from punishment by the sport's governing body in exchange for bringing the dispute to light - as long as his version of events is found to be true.
FIA president Max Mosley told autosport.com: ""We have said to him that, and I don't know exactly how it was phrased, but he has been told that if he tells us the truth then he will not be proceeded against individually."
Meanwhile, the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) has weighed in to the race-fixing argument surrounding the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, condemning the leakage of the statement given by Piquet to the FIA.
“All parties to the dispute should have the right to a fair hearing carried out in private and not in the public arena, which is producing adverse publicity damaging to the corporate image and credibility of Formula One,” it said in a statement.
“FOTA believes that differences within the sport should be handled in a professional manner and condemns the habit of intentionally releasing confidential documents to influence public opinion. Confidential documents should remain under the control of the competent authority.”
A copy of Piquet’s statement, claiming that he was coerced into crashing deliberately in Singapore, appeared on a South African website. FIA President Max Mosley has promised to take precautions to prevent such leaks in future.
“We are genuinely curious as to why that happened,” he told reporters. “Next time, when we send out to 20 or 30 people, we will probably arrange it in such a way that we can tell who is leaking stuff. We don’t know how it happened.
“But none of that means anything. What means something is when we get their defence, which will not be until next week.”
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Re: Piquet granted race-fix immunity
So it seems now that it's ok to be part of shameful acts and then when it doesn't suit and the dummy gets spit out that the baby will be picked up into Daddy's (FIA's) arms and all will be forgotten if you tell Daddy what happened - but don't tell fibs or else you'll be in the time-out chair with Uncle Flav.
Piquette is doing this only because its sour grapes as it has been put before - his almost criminal actions should not go unpunished....if this happened at Monza and someone got hurt he may well have been prosecuted!