All talk at Monza is dominated by the Renault Formula One team’s appearance before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) on September 21 over allegations relating to last year’s Singapore Grand Prix. Giancarlo Fisichella’s appearance for Ferrari and the fascinating four-way battle for this year’s drivers’ championship are of secondary importance, and with good reason. If the allegations made by Nelson Piquet Jr are true, it will cause untold damage to Renault and F1.

Race fixing is even more serious than cheating with oversize engines or underweight cars in my view. The fabric and foundation of any sport is that the fans must believe that what they are witnessing is true and honest.

Piquet claims he was told to crash his car, handing victory in Singapore to his teammate, Fernando Alonso. If it turns out to be true, it is a grave matter. Coming on top of the spying, lying and sexual shenanigans of the past two years, it’s the last thing the sport needs.

We have to assume the FIA has some solid information to have called the hearing. Among all the “he said, she said” recriminations it seems that the initial trigger has come from Piquet and his father, former triple world champion Nelson Sr. Using the old adage that attack is the best form of defence, the Renault team are taking legal action against both Piquets for extortion and attempted blackmail — charges which they deny.

The balloon has gone up and one or more key people within the sport are about to take some major pain. To an extent the damage has already been done with the copious amounts of information that has been leaked ahead of the inquiry.

The Piquets have been given assurances that, as apparent whistleblowers, they would be protected against serious punishment. But that’s not the point. Piquet Jr is unemployable now. A driver who would willingly and intentionally crash his car? Unforgiveable.

His rationale is that his contractual option hadn’t been taken the previous month so he was stressed and wanted to please the team. Try waiting the whole winter to sign a race-by-race contract days before the first grand prix of the season — that’s stress, but still not enough to crash a car intentionally.

The task here will be to distance Renault from the alleged acts of its team personnel. The perception is that Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, who deny the allegations, will be under pressure to depart F1 if it is proven that there was an intentional crash which could have caused serious injury and effectively fixed the result.

Many F1 insiders believe Briatore’s scalp is wanted. His team were in trouble in 2007 for being in possession of a rival’s team software, and again this year when a wheel fell off Alonso’s car and Renault were suspended from the European Grand Prix in Hungary — they were only reinstated after an appeal. Briatore was a ringleader in the recent breakaway threat of the teams’ association Fota, which threatened to set up its own series. I have worked with Briatore and Symonds and it would be a shame if they are excluded from F1, even though Briatore once fired me.

Talking with a group of eminent people, Niki Lauda asked: “Do you think it was an intentional crash?” I instinctively replied: “Yes.” He said: “I agree completely.” So that’s our guess for what it’s worth.

There are secondary implications. Felipe Massa, for example, could legitimately claim the incident cost him the 2008 world championship. He was on his way to victory before the safety car for Piquet’s accident triggered a sequence of events in the Ferrari pits which left him out of the points.

I am expecting a fascinating race today. Watching Fisichella, drafted into the injured Massa’s car, coping with the pressure of being an Italian Ferrari driver will be intriguing, especially after his very disappointing 14th place on the grid behind both Force Indias, the team he deserted.

Fisichella is old enough and wise enough to handle it. We know for sure that he will be better than former substitute Luca Badoer, my sympathy for whom totally evaporated when he blamed the media for losing him the temporary drive. His right foot and the stopwatch are to blame. Most, if not all, drivers would have jumped ship into the Ferrari in a heartbeat, as Fisichella did. Ferrari have used four drivers this season, the regulatory maximum allowed unless force majeure is demonstrated.

Most of the fans here will be clothed in Ferrari team gear but for Jenson Button the red cars are just one more potential complication in his laborious quest to win this world championship. He badly needs to turn it around today from sixth on the grid. With a solid fuel load and strategy he seems particularly happy though. He has decided to treat this as a five-race championship in which he has been given a 16-point head start.

I cannot see how Button’s teammate Rubens Barrichello is going to outscore him by three points per race in the remaining races, but it would only take a first-corner incident or a mechanical failure and it could all turn around. It is, however, still Button’s championship to lose.

HOW ONE ACCIDENT AT LAST YEAR'S SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX TRIGGERED A SCANDAL

Crash man

On lap 13 of last year's Singapore Grand Prix Nelson Piquet Jr crashes. His Renault car is out of reach of the cranes and a safety car is deployed while the mess is cleared up. A safety car at this moment in the race - after his teammate Fernando Alonso has pitted but before anyone else has - is perfect for Alonso....

The beneficiary

The bunching up of the field behind the safety car wipes out Alonso's 50 second deficit and when the cars ahead of him in the queue pit for their fuel (because at safety car speeds a pit stop loses you less time to the pack than when the pack is at racing speed) so Alonso, right, floats up to the front of the queue. When racing resumes he takes a comfortable victory.

The real loser

Felipe Massa, who was leading the race at the time of the crash, was forced into an under-pressure pit stop that went horribly wrong. From looking like a certain winner, he scores 0 points. The Brazilian later lost the world championship to Lewis Hamilton by one point. With hindsight, the outcome of the world championship was changed here.

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