Piquet laments 'Crashgate' fallout

Nelson Piquet Jnr fears he may never get a drive again and has complained that he was the biggest loser in the 'Crashgate' Singapore race-fixing scandal.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton said at the weekend that he thought Piquet could return to the drivers' circuit despite his role in the scandal at the 2008 race, in which he facilitated a victory for teammate Fernando Alonso by crashing his car on the orders of Renault team chiefs.

Piquet, though, told Brazilian media that he felt he was the main loser in the affair.

"I did the sport a service but have ended up the victim," Piquet, sacked by Renault in July, told O Globo television in an interview broadcast on Sunday night. "I made a mistake in accepting what they asked me to do in that situation."

But he insisted: "I was the most affected by this business. My career is over, the affair has tarnished me... No one has been punished more than I have.

"I want to clear up this business rapidly so it doesn't stay within me for the rest of my life," he went on, adding that the plot was hatched only a matter of hours before the race.

"I did not have time to think straight," he said.

The scandal led to the downfall of Renault team principal Flavio Briatore and chief engineer Pat Symonds, but as the whistle-blower, Piquet was given immunity from official sanction.

Despite his reputation being in ruins with Symonds alleging the incident was entirely conceived by Piquet, the 24-year-old has apologised and made clear he wants to return to the grid - though several drivers have intimated he may find that difficult.

Piquet said he knew his actions meant that "many fans of Formula One will be mad with me for a long time. Now there's nothing I can do about it - the damage is done. I want to apologise to all those who love Formula One."

He added: "Flavio knew I was in a delicate position as we'd been renegotiating all week a contract that I didn't want to sign."

He added that in the run-up to the race, Renault were "threatening to withdraw my contract or the renewal for the next season".

Piquet used the interview to explain why he did not mention Alonso in his testimony to the FIA investigation.

"I didn't have to get him involved and he didn't want to get involved. Alonso did not participate in the meeting when the idea of a crash was developed. If he knew about the plan or not, that is a detail I don't know.

"Many people are of the opinion that he knew and others say not."

Looking to his possible future back on the track, Piquet said: "I need a decent team, a decent engineer. A team that believes in me. I don't know which one it will be but I do know I will go back to racing."

However, many in the paddock believe that Piquet should not have succumbed to the pressure to carry out the controversial instructions and several drivers believe he will not return to the cockpit given the huge fallout.

"It's a very complex situation. He has done enough damage to himself. He got himself into a situation, which of course he regrets, and I think it will be very difficult for him to come back," Red Bull's Mark Webber said, while Ferrari's former world champion Kimi Raikkonen agreed that "it will be difficult for him to get back out there".

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