Perfectly true but would it not send a good moral message that 'cheating' isn't tolerated unless of course you're Bernie who thinks the ban on his QPR mate is 'too harsh' and he should 'appeal.'
Agree it happened last season and that's been and gone in terms of points etc but the fact is Renault won the face by acting in the way they did. I think the moral princple here is the most important thing.
Take karting. I and others have said before that there are certain lap records that may never be broken and yet the driver that set them was subsequently found to be using illegal equipment.
Now the fact that the records were set and there was no detection of any wrongdoing at the time - means technically that the records are ok and should stand. Whereas others might say 'once a cheat always a...' and the records should be expunged.
My point is that retrospective decisions are always fraught with danger but in the case of Renault, they did cheat and have admitted it and it led to them winning. There's no disputing that. If they had not cheated then again technically we will never know whether Alonso could have won but does anyone think he would?
The element of doubt/unknown might be reason enough for them NOT to give the trophy back in some eyes. Personally, I'd have a lot more respect if they turned round and said 'yes we did wrong and the result should either be changed or declated null and void.'
And I can hear all the cynics saying 'cloud cuckoo land...' but why not? Why not a major team or individual athelete doing the right thing for once?
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