F1 moments you feel have tainted the sport the most!

[Coulthard Fan]

1. Crashgate I still can't believe this happened and all this rubbish about Alonso not nothing about if makes me feel even more sick. It was clear he knew what was going on.

2. Schumachers Cheating in the 90s/early2000s Crashing into Damon hill in Australlia on purpose which many people believe, Jaques V crash in 1997 should have got a life ban for that no different to crashgate someone could have got seriously hurt, the Benetton car from 95 having electronic aids even though they were banned, are just some reasons why I can't stand the fella!
In a way he is like Lance Armstrong he will do anything to win even if its dangerous!

3. Bernie E! The bloke is a complete moron they way he has treated Silverstone is discusting. The country of his birth and he treats the British Grand Prix like it dosn't even matter. Dont even get me started on Spa or Montreal!
The fact he would rather see processional races on tracks designed by that melt tilke rather then exciting races that keep you on the edge of your seat, just proves all he cares about is the money and not the fans!

[Mintexmemory]

Wooooooo couldn't you just open one can of worms at a time!!
Once the FIA had allowed the Senna - Prost tit for tat malarky without season-long bans they were powerless to stop an idiot chosing to drive into the opponents for competitive advantage. Jean Marie Balestre deserves all the credit for creating the monster MS

[Natalie.S]

#1 Simples that's Spygate!
Mclaren got off lightly with 100 million fine
They should have been banned for 07 & 08

#2 the orchestrated lying by Lewis Hamilton and Mclaren after the 2009 Aussie GP
Positive side effect was that Ron Dennis was run out of the sport

#3 Crashgate
Positive side effect was that Flavio Briatore was run out of the sport

[henners88]

Hmmm a can of worms no doubt but I'll share my opinion
The ones that stick in my mind are:

1. FISA manipulating the rules in the 1990 season finale between Senna and Prost. It really made a mockery of the whole sport and showed a driver could win through who he knew rather than what he did on track.

2. Schumacher using his car to win the 1994 championship after an error had taken him out of the race. A rather unsavoury end even if Schumacher deserved the championship up until the final race IMHO. I could add Jerez 1997 and Monaco 2006 to this category too. He still retired as a great though but he could have been the greatest ever.

3. Spygate 2007 was a huge scandal. Alonso, De La Rosa, Coughlan and several other McLaren engineers attempted to pull of one of the biggest cheats in the sports history, if not the biggest. How the team and drivers got off without long term bans I will never know. McLaren would have been sensible to sack all those involved with immediate effect IMO but got off rather lightly with a fine.

4. Crashgate 2008 was stupidity on a grand scale. I think more people knew about it than was ever revealed but it exposed fixing can come to any sport. The FIA acted correctly with banning certain members but could have gone a lot deeper.


The sport is selling out and is getting greedier and greedier. Who knows what its popularity will like in future generations? I think more things will continue to taint the sport but one day I hope they realise the fans watching is what keeps it in the public domain.

[Tazio]

Changing the point scoring, specifically but not exclusively raising first place points higher than 10. Nothing IMO taints F1 more than self inflicted wounds by its establishment.

[Big Ben]

The moment DRS became official.

IMO all the gates mentioned above tainted the people involved not the sport.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

[Knock-on]

I suppose it depends on what we mean by tainted and if we equat tainted with 'damaged'.

I don't think anythng has really damaged the sport as controversy usually ends up in increased interest from the viewing public.

The things that have been detrimental in my opinion are periods of domination such as the Schumacher era and the current Red Bull reign. Lets hope they are defeated this year for the good of the sport.

If we look at the major controversies of the sport, we are probably talking about the shocking cheating by Balestere against Senna, the subsequent tete-a-tete between Senna and Prost, the endemic cheating at Benetton and Ferrari, especially on the electronics front, during the Schumacher era which, if the FIA weren't complicite in, were guilty of overlooking. Crashgate was shocking and Alonso's bribery and McLarens serious failings that lead to Spygate were unforgivable. However, Max's zealous persecution of Ron and McLaren was also damaging for the sport and it must be mentioned that the only way McLaren knew Ferrari were cheating and the FIA were ignoring it ws because of the dossier.

We also need to look at why Renault were swept under the carpet in a similar Spygate case and Schumacher at Monaco parking out on track, the role of the FIA in America during the Tyre crisis and suggestions of Champion rigging from Bernie and others and a host of other things.

What a murkey old world F1 is but apart from the 2005 US GP, did any of them really harm the sport? Probably not and not more than periods of domination. Food for thought.

[Coulthard Fan]

I was just about to say Spygate wasn't just Mclarens fault! Ferrari were just as much involved and I seem to remember a Ferrari team member going to Prison.

[rjbetty]

2003 Brazilian Grand Prix - Fisichella not being allowed to celebrate his maiden win. This caused my love for F1 to die inside. I personally also think it affected Fisi and he was never the same since. It would have been preferable for him never to win a race. What did he do to deserve that? It wasn't that they took his win away, but that they gave it back to him, when it was too late and the moment had gone.

It might sound like rubbish, but being able to celebrate your first victory is all-important. With the 2nd and 3rd it's not the same. You NEED to celebrate that first one properly. This moment killed my passion for the sport and it never recovered - I can only imagine (actually it's obvious) what it did to Fisi inside. That and getting into a drive he deserved far too late was what undid him - and also the Renault Flav politics and simply Alonso's much-increased performance for 2005-6.



I don't think DRS is fake: I don't see how it's any different than cars just being able to slipstream as they used to. For too long it's been artificially hard to slipstream - DRS just resets the balance. Would we be complaining it's fake and too easy if cars could just slipstream naturally as they used to? Cars could still drive past on a straight in the old less aerodynamic days.

I'm really disappointed with Bernie. While Frank Williams seems to be softening as his age advances, it seems that since Bernie was attacked the other year, I think he's realised he doesn't have an abundance of years left. Also, there's the looming German case. It looks like he's maybe just spending his remaining days screwing as much money out of the sport as he can while he's still in charge. He increasingly seems to not care what state he leaves the sport in for after his time. I feel sorry for him...

[steveaki13]

Changing the point scoring, specifically but not exclusively raising first place points higher than 10. Nothing IMO taints F1 more than self inflicted wounds by its establishment.

I feel its done that too, but maybe in two ways.

Firstly like you say it hasn't changed anything percentage wise really from the 10-8-6 and in fact 10-6-4 was probably more fair to the winner, but secondly it blurs records for points scored way back to the beginning, I know its not about comparisons but I still think it effects the historical view of the sport.

The moment DRS became official.

IMO all the gates mentioned above tainted the people involved not the sport.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

Dont start me on DRS.

On the other thing I agree. Really if you think back to "CrashGate" you tend to think of Flavio or Pat and shake your head, but you do not really think of F1 and despair.