Exclusive: Herbert says crashgate is "typical Flavio"
Johnny Herbert admits he rarely saw eye-to-eye with Flavio Briatore
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Saturday, 19, Sep 2009 08:53
By Adam Leveridge.
In an exclusive interview with inthenews.co.uk, former Benetton driver Johnny Herbert has said he wasn't surprised when he heard the race-fixing allegations against Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds.
Over the last week, damning evidence collected by the FIA has been leaked to the media and led to Briatore and Symonds resigning from their posts with Renault after they were accused of forcing Nelson Piquet to deliberately crash his car at Singapore last season.
Herbert, who raced for Benetton under Briatore from the end of 1994 and completed a full-season with the team in 1995, said the Italian team boss made his job very difficult during their time together.
"Flavio is not one for his word - he will tell you one thing one day and then change it a couple of weeks down the line, which is exactly what I had," said Herbert, who revealed problems behind the scenes while he was team-mates with Michael Schumacher.
"When I went to Benetton and I first sat in his office, I was told it was a team effort, we work together because we want to win the constructors' championship and we need to get all the results we can to enable us to do that.
"Then, after my second race with them, Michael Schumacher asked the team to keep his data under wraps and away from me.
"He went to Flavio, who said yes, which to me was completely wrong because Schumacher was able to access my data on the other side of the table.
"Flavio should have said to Michael, 'no, this is a team thing, you go head-to-head and the best man will win', but for him to allow Michael to keep his data secret was not very clever to me.
"It made my job much harder. Mentally it was tough as well, because Michael was seeing everything I was doing and I wasn't seeing anything he was doing.
"My performances suffered - it hit me quite hard."
Piquet was apparently asked by Briatore to purposely crash out of last year's night race in Singapore to assist his team-mate, Fernando Alonso, who would go on to win the race thanks to the resultant safety car.
The young driver, who was subsequently kept on by the Enstone-based team for the first half of the 2009 season before being dropped, has publicly complained of experiences similar to Herbert's with Briatore - even referring to the Italian as his "executioner".
And the Briton can identify with Piquet's experiences at Renault and said he has complete sympathy for the 24-year-old Brazilian.
"What has happened now with Fernando Alonso being Flavio's main man while, strangely enough, managing Nelson Piquet, to put Nelson in that position is not very fair," said Herbert.
"It's a difficult enough job as it is and when you have all those pressures on you and you get this [referring to Briatore and Symonds' request to crash deliberately in Singapore) thrown at you... I think it's something that is typical Flavio at the end of the day.
"He's always got one driver out of the two that is his favourite.
"It's always been the way - it's not just me and Nelson, it's other drivers too.
"It's always been difficult and it normally comes out in the press and he will have a real go at the driver at the same time or he will use the media to try and stir up issues."
Herbert also claimed it "wasn't a surprise" when he first heard of the allegations against Briatore and Symonds and raised the issue of the disputed race standings in the context of the tight race for the 2008 drivers' world championship.
"Initially I didn't believe it, but after analyzing it a little bit more you can see why it was done that way," the Briton continued.
"The outcome of the race obviously changed and, more importantly, it probably changed the outcome of the championship.
"If there hadn't have been any of the pit-stops and the penalties that went out to the likes of Kubica, who pitted when the pits weren't open, Massa probably would have won the race, which would have won him the world championship.
"I feel sorry for Piquet because he was put in a horrible position - he did what he was told to do but it's going to make it very hard for him to get back into F1.
"It's unfair because it wasn't his idea to crash out of the race. It's a shame for him, but it's also a shame for Renault who have had their name dragged through the mud."
Monday's World Motor Sport Council hearing will determine what punishment is meted out to the Renault team, as well as the individuals involved including Briatore, Symonds and Piquet.
Click here to read the full interview with Johnny Herbert, where he discusses crashgate in more detail; the effect it could have on F1 as a whole; and reveals more about his time working with Briatore and Schumacher at Bennetton.