Just when peace seemed to have broken out in Formula One. and some lawyers were thinking they may have to cancel their order for a new Ferrari, along comes 'Crashgate'. What a relief, for several weeks things were quiet, too quiet. According to a report in the British daily newspaper, The Independent, the investigation is spreading wider than the 2008 Singapore GP.

The FIA has been careful not to mention any race, team or driver, but when Bernie expresses the hope that it will not drive Renault from F1, circumspection flies out of the window. I guess it is a sign of the times that Bernie hopes that the investigation does not upset Renault rather then him expressing dismay that an allegation of race-fixing has been made.

If the allegation turns out to be true, we would be better off without Renault, because this is cheating on the scale of running an over-sized engine. It is not a misinterpretation of the rules such as got Honda a two-race ban.

We should all feel sorry for the parent company and for the many men and women in France and England who contribute to the team and who would have no knowledge at all of the alleged misdemeanour. If it happened, it would have been known to very few people otherwise it would not have taken nearly a year to come out.

Let us be clear, the alleged incident would be easily possible. Piquet Minimus may not have quite cut the mustard in Formula One, but he is a very good driver. Think of him in terms of a footballer who is a key player in one of the top national teams, but who might not make the squad to represent Earth in the Inter-Galactic World Cup.

There are only twenty drivers on a Formula One grid, but there are thousands of footballers contracted to clubs in the English Premiership and their equivalents in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, plus the better clubs in countries with less wealthy leagues. We sometimes forget just how special a driver has to be to get a chance to drive a current F1 car.

Baby Nelson spun on the parade lap at Singapore, not the first to do that, but he gathered it together and endangered nobody else. The guy is not as good as Alonso, but that's no disgrace, he's still pretty special.

It would be easy for a driver of Piquet's skill to arrange a crash without putting himself in jeopardy, movie stunt drivers do it all the time. A dab on the brakes or throttle in the wrong place is all it would need. Piquet Minimus had nobody near him and he had just exited a ninety degree left-hander on a street circuit. Sideways into a wall is not going to be too uncomfortable, or dangerous, a spinning car rubs off speed.

The fact that the car barely bounced back onto the track indicates that it did not collide at high speed. On the other hand, the crash generated a lot of debris from bodywork, wings and the like. If one assumes that it was planned, then the spread of debris achieved the desired result, which was to trigger the Safety Car. Piquet's car was well off the racing line and had it stopped in the same position because of a technical malfunction, a crane would have been deployed.

There is ample coverage on YouTube and the guy was unaffected. He got out of the car, received a round of applause, which he acknowledged, and then ran across the track. It appeared to have been just another racing incident.