Hill concerned for F1

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The 'crashgate' scandal is the latest to sully a sport bedevilled by problems, most notably over the past two years, further damaging its reputation.

"I'm concerned the sport is going to suffer as a genuine challenge, which is what I always felt it should be and would like it to be, of skill and competitiveness," Hill told BBC Radio 4.

Sir Jackie Stewart on Wednesday said "there is something fundamentally rotten and wrong at the heart of Formula One". British Racing Drivers' Club president and 1996 world champion Hill also feels F1 needs to look at itself to prove it is worthy of being called a sport.

"It's not a very good episode," added Hill. "There are clearly a lot of issues, and have been in the past, and it has a lot of soul searching to do.

"It's a huge sport, there's a huge amount of interest, and sometimes controversies actually add to the interest. But you want it to be for the right reasons."

Renault have decided not to dispute the allegations made by the FIA, that they conspired with former driver Nelson Piquet Jnr to cause a crash in last year's Singapore Grand Prix. As a consequence, Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds have left their positions as team principal and executive director of engineering.

Hill feels Briatore and Symonds, in asking Piquet Jnr to crash, did not think through the consequences of such an action and that they were putting people's lives at risk.

"That is definitely something that was not considered," he said. "If it is what's happened, and we're assuming Piquet's allegations are correct, it was probably not taken on board as seriously as it should have been.

"If that's exactly what was suggested then I don't think they were taking into account everyone involved. But then we don't know to what extent they expected Piquet to crash either."