All Formula One teams are cheats, claims Irvine

LONDON - Ex-Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine has claimed that all Formula One teams are cheats.

Irvine says there has been an overreaction to the race-fixing charges being levelled at the Renault team.

He admitted the Crashgate scandal that cost Renault team chief Flavio Briatore and technical boss Pat Symonds their jobs had gone too far.

“F1 is a war and all is fair in war. When I was in various teams you would do anything to win. You pushed people off, you did whatever you could do to win,” he said.

“This is probably slightly on the wrong side of the cheating thing, but in F1 - if you look back at days gone past - then every team has done it. They will cheat, bend the rules, do whatever they could, sabotage opponents.

“Nothing was beyond the realms of decency and that is what F1 always is. It is not a pure sport,’ The Sun quoted Irvine, as saying.

The Renault team still has to appear before the World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Monday where they face a massive fine, race suspension or even being kicked out of the sport.

But Irvine reckons they could escape with a more lenient penalty amid fears that another team is about to leave the sport.

Irvine, who also raced for Jordan and Jaguar, added: “If you think that McLaren got a 100 million dollars fine for having some papers of the Ferrari team, what punishment is relevant here? It is complete banning. But I don’t believe that is going to happen as F1 cannot afford to lose more teams.”

Briatore threatened to sue Piquet Snr after the three-time world champ made the revelations about his son. (ANI)