Here’s a pretty good way to make yourself highly
unemployable.
On receiving news that his services were no longer
required at Renault F1, Nelson Piquet Jr has responded by releasing a 1,133 word missive against his old
boss, Flavio Briatore - apparently his 'executioner'.
Here it is in all it’s glory…
‘I have received notice from the
Renault F1 team of its intention to stop me from driving for them in the current
F1 season. I want to say thanks to the small group who supported me and that I
worked together at Renault F1, although it is obviously with great
disappointment that I receive such news. But, at the same time, I feel a sense
of relief for the end of the worst period of my career, and the possibility that
I can now move on and put my career back on the right track and try to recover
my reputation of a fast, winning driver. I am a team player and there are dozens
of people I have worked with in my career who would vouch for my character and
talent, except unfortunately the person that has had the most influence on my
career in Formula 1.
I started racing at the age of eight
and have broken record after record. I won every championship I raced in
go-karts. I was South American F3 champion, winning 14 races and getting 17 pole
positions. In 2003 I went to England, with my own team, to compete
in the British F3 championship. I was champion there as well, winning 12 races
and getting 13 pole positions. In fact I was the youngest ever champion. I raced
GP2 in 2005 and 2006, winning five races and scoring six pole positions. I had a
great season in my second year, only missing out on the championship to Lewis
Hamilton due to technical mistakes of our team, which I take as my own as well,
including running out of fuel during a race. I set the record in GP2 for the
first driver to have a perfect weekend, scoring the maximum points available, in
Hungary 2006. No-one matched that until July 2009 when Nico Hulkenberg did in at
Nurburgring.
The path to F1 was always going to
be tricky, and my father and I therefore signed a management contract with
Flavio Briatore, who we believed was an excellent option with all the necessary
contacts and management skills. Unfortunately, that was when the black period of
my career started. I spent one year as a test driver, where I only did a handful
of tests, and the next year started as a race driver with Renault. After the
opening part of the season, some strange situations began to happen. As a
beginner in F1, I could only expect from my team a lot of support and
preparation to help me in getting up to the task. Instead, I was relegated as
“someone who drives the other car” with no attention at all. In addition, on
numerous occasions, fifteen minutes before qualifying and races, my manager and
team boss (Briatore) would threaten me, telling me if I didn’t get a good
result, he had another driver ready to put in my place. I have never needed
threats before to get results. In 2008 I scored 19 points, finished once on the
podium in second place, having the best debut year of a Brazilian driver in
F1.
For the 2009 season Briatore, again
acting both as my manager and team boss of Renault F1, promised me everything
would be different, that I would get the attention I deserved but had never
received, and that I would get “at least equal treatment” inside the team. He
made me sign a performance-based contract, requiring me to score 40% of Fernando
Alonso’s points by mid-way through the season. Despite driving with Fernando,
two-time world champion and a really excellent driver, I was confident that, if
I had the same conditions, I would easily attain the 40% of points required by
the contract.
Unfortunately, the promises didn’t
turn into reality again. With the new car I completed 2002km of testing compared
to Fernando’s 3839km. Only three days of my testing was in dry weather – only
one of Fernando’s was wet. I was only testing with a heavy car, hard tyres,
mostly on the first day (when the track is slow and reliability is poor), or
when the weather was bad. Fernando was driving a light car with soft tyres in
the dry, fine conditions. I never had a chance to be prepared for the qualifying
system we use. In Formula 1 today, the difference between 1st and 15th position
is sometimes less than a second. It means that 0.2 or 0.3s can make you gain
eight positions.
In addition to that, car development
is now happening on a race-to-race basis due to the in season testing ban. Of
the first nine races that I ran this year, in four of them Fernando had a
significant car upgrade that I did not have. I was informed by the engineers at
Renault that in those races I had a car that was between 0.5 and 0.8s a lap
slower than my teammate. If I look at Germany (where I out-qualified my
teammate despite that), if I had that advantage in qualifying I would be fifth
and not tenth. If we had that difference in the race, I would have finished
ahead of my teammate, which I did in Silverstone, despite him having upgrades
that I did not have.
I believe without doubt in my talent
and my performance. I didn’t get this far by getting bad results. Anyone who
knows my history knows that the results I am having in F1 do not match my CV and
my ability. The conditions I have had to deal with during the last two years
have been very strange to say the least – there are incidents that I can hardly
believe occurred myself. If I now need to give explanations, I am certain it is
because of the unfair situation I have been in the past two years. I always
believed that having a manager was being a part of a team and having a partner.
A manager is supposed to encourage you, support you, and provide you with
opportunities. In my case it was the opposite. Flavio Briatore was my
executioner.
Being under pressure is not new to
me. I have had criticism throughout my career, and have also had a lot of
expectations put on me due to my name. Up until now I always met those
expectations – surpassed them even. I have never before felt the need to defend
myself or fight back from rumours and criticism because I knew the truth and I
just wanted to concentrate on racing – I didn’t ever let it affect me.
Fortunately, I can now say to those people who supported me through my career
that I’m back on the good tracks and considering the options for a new start in
my F1 career in a fair and positive way.
