The verdict is in. Well, the punishment is in: we knew the verdict when Renault put their hands up to the charges and sacked team boss Flavio and engineering director Pat.

I was quite vociferous about what kind of punishment Renault should be in for after the facts about Singapore 2008 came out. Words like “disgraceful” and “thrown out” uttered from my lips. What Briatore, Symonds and Piquet did was, I though, worse than anything else in F1’s dirty recent history.

There are no winners to come out of this debacle. Piquet is unemployable due to his low moral character, the “rightness” of 2008 championship was affected (Massa looked set to score decent points that day, even 8th place would have won him the championship) and Renault and the dirty Duo are branded dirty cheats (which they are).

Flavio Briatore has been thrown out of every FIA sanctioned series for life as well as driver management, but is rich enough to see his days out on his Yacht. Pat Symonds is banned from every FIA series for five years, which probably means he won’t be back either, but may seek refuge in some lower form of motorsport - A1GP, perhaps, or something in America.

Renault themselves come out of it rather unscathed (in fact if not in reputation): a lifetime ban suspended for two years for what should at the very least have seen them kicked out of this year. Perhaps the FIA were worried about the parent company pulling out in a time the quality of 2010’s entrants remains to be seen.

So, once again Formula 1 puts another regrettable distraction to one side for the final four races of the year. Time to get back to some racing, methinks.