Nelson Piquet Jr has entered into a war of words with his team principal and manager, Flavio Briatore.
Briatore told Autosprint magazine Piquet had failed to meet expectations, and responded to the fact that Alonso had a lot more pre-season testing by pointing out that Mark Webber had a lot less testing than Sebastian Vettel, due to the Australian's broken leg, but that he is now the German's equal.
Nelson says Flav only thinks about money: "Flavio is a businessman, but he doesn't know shit about F1."
This is something Ron Dennis cited many times, albeit in more polite language.
"He's my manager, but in his role of team boss he doesn't respect me," Nelson continued. "He only thinks about money, and how much he can pocket in everything he's involved, he's a man with no friends. Everyday everyone asks me what's going on, so why should I always keep quiet?
"Webber has been in F1 since 2001, he started in a different era, when testing wasn't limited. He's probably done more than 20,000 km in testing, so it's not a fair comparison.
"And besides that, I have to fight against Briatore and Alonso himself, who is a fantastic driver. When I wasn't competitive in qualifying I was the first to own up to it. But if Briatore doesn't understand that, what can I do?"
Renault are facing a one-race ban after a wheel came loose on Alonso's car in Hungary. At the next race it's expected Frenchman Romain Grosjean will replace Piquet. A source close to the Brazilian told me in Budapest it is 80 percent certain.
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