Is Renault the new McLaren?

After spygate, McLaren's name was mud. It wasn't helped by the events of Melbourne this year when McLaren and Lewis Hamilton were accused of cheating. McLaren faced the biggest fine in sporting history of £50m in 2007 and were thrown out of the championship.

Now Renault stand accused of the a similar cheating story. In the Singapore GP of 2008, Fernando Alonso went to the pits early after qualifying only 15th. A strange strategy, usually when you qualify low down you put loads of fuel in and hope to make up places. A couple of laps later Nelson Piquet, Alonso's team-mate, crashed but not heavily, just enough to bring out the safety car.

From there, most of the field went into the pits leaving Alonso high up the grid. When Rosberg, Webber and Massa went into the pits Alonso was in the lead and garnered Renault's first win of the year.

Just a coincidence? Probably. But what if it isn't? At the time, there were murmurs that Renault had concocted the crash but these were dismissed. The timing of the new story at Spa was not a coincidence though, Nelson Piquet had just been fired by Renault and had been very vocal about Flavio Briatore's treatment of him. Did Nelsinho spread the story, and was it made up?

It will be fascinating to see. If Piquet did spread the story his career is over. If Renault did cheat, their championship is over. Alonso will look murky too, having been in two teams which proceeded to cheat.

Squiffy.