WHY RADIO AND TELEMETRY EVIDENCE WAS IMPORTANT?
The matter that shifted the Singapore case away from simply being one man’s word against another’s was the telemetry evidence. The data, republished here, shows how after a brief hesitant back-off as he experienced wheel spin coming out of the corner, Piquet floored the throttle until he smashed into the wall at Turn 17. This compares with Alonso’s very different approach to the corner. Telemetry from the FIA dossier: Piquet’s Wheelspin Alonso’s Wheelspin Piquet’s Throttle Piquet’s Throttle Detail Piquet’s Gyro This evidence proved almost conclusively that Piquet had crashed deliberately – and even Symonds admitted in his interview with the stewards that the Brazilian’s behaviour had looked ‘unusual.’ He told the stewards: “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a deliberate crash so I [sic], it’s very unusual data…when he has that much wheel spin it’s counter-intuitive.” During the time of the interviews the stewards had not had a copy of the radio transcripts of the race – which also show some
