Formula One news: Piquet and Briatore at loggerheads again - GPUpdate.net Formula One



Previous wars of words between Nelson Piquet and Renault team principal Flavio Briatore have appeared to continue whilst rumours of the Brazilian's departure from the French team remain in circulation. Since entering Formula One last year, Piquet's relationship with his team principal has remained strained.

With Brazilian Piquet having reported that team-mate Fernando Alonso is the team's favoured driver, Italian Briatore has responded by commenting that both drivers in the team are presented with equal opportunities. "I've always been fair with my drivers," he told Autosprint. "I expected more from Piquet because this is his second year in a full-time drive; he has done less testing in comparison with Alonso but Webber tested less than Vettel because of his broken leg and look where he is now."

With the R29 of Alonso having contained more updated parts for the majority of the season and subsequent reports claiming an advantage of over half a second per lap, Briatore strongly contests the claims. "When a driver lacks results, he opens the book of excuses and begins with the weather, a spectator's sunglasses, a spin on the straight, this and that," he continued. "It's not true that there's a technical difference of seven tenths between Alonso and Piquet's cars. If that was true, we'd have a car capable of winning the title and that, unfortunately, isn't the case - the technical difference has always been minimal and never longer than one race."

"Flavio is a business man but he doesn't understand s*** about F1," Piquet is quoted as saying. "He is my manager but in his role of team boss he doesn't respect me; he only thinks about money, about how much money he can pocket in everything he's involved with - he's a man with no friends. Every day everyone asks me what's going on, so why should I always stay quiet?

"Webber (also managed by Briatore) has been in F1 since 2001 - he started in a different era, when testing wasn't limited. He's probably done more than 20,000 kilometres in testing so that is not a fair comparison. Now the situation is more difficult for a driver with little experience. Besides that, I have to fight against Briatore himself and Alonso, who is a fantastic driver - when I wasn't competitive in qualifying I was the first owing up to it but if Briatore doesn't understand that what can I do?"

 

I'm surprised that the punk is still employed. Briatore should just fire him and get it over with...

 

that "punk" has lately been showing decent pace, he was only 3 tenths off alonso at hungary. he is correct in citing the test ban putting him at a disadvantage. if you remember alonso had a whole season (2002) of testing and did over 1500 laps during that period. these days the learning curve is much steeper. he needs to get out of his current situation at renault for sure, but he is showing more and more that he belongs on the grid.

 

It's definitely true that the newer drivers are at a serious disadvantage, but look at the new drivers that have come into F1 in the past two or three years and have been kicking ass like Lewis Hamilton or Sebastien Vettel. Piquet should spend more time training and les time bitching about Briatore. While Briatore is definitely a self-centered asshole, Piquet shouldn't be the one to talk about his boss that way.