Of course, they could have been fined some hundred million dollars or being docked some hundreds points in the standings, but if we are to look at the consequences of the crash-gate scandal, we'd realize that Renault will continue to pay for it in the long run.
First of all, being accused of cheating and admitting to race-fixing charges doesn't quite fit into the “great marketing” scheme set up by any team in any sport around the world. With that in mind, the image of the French company had clearly underwent a degrading process within the past couple of weeks, which puts a big question mark over their future involvement in the sport.
Last week, several rumors suggested that Renault and Toyota might choose to leave the sport at the end of 2009 because their F1 programmes are no longer sustainable under the current economic crisis. However, both manufacturers denied the allegations, reminding everyone that they have signed the new Concorde Agreement, keeping them in the series at least until 2013.
In addition, let's not forget that Renault's title sponsorship deal with Dutch banking group ING is to run out at the end of 2009, and the crash saga will certainly not be a high point on the company's CV when trying to find a new sponsor from 2010 onwards.
“No one, whether it's a fan or a business, will like to position themselves with a brand accused of cheating,” said Jonathan Neill, PR director for the company Generate Sponsorship, according to the GMM news agency.
The first step Renault will now have to do is to replace the two officials that left the team last week, team boss Flavio Briatore and head of engineering Pat Symonds. Several names have been rumored in the media regarding the team principal role – Alain Prost, David Richards, Frederic Vasseur – but no word on Symonds's potential replacement yet.
Google News