According to an FIA source, the investigation into allegations against the Renault F1 team goes "above and beyond" the issue of whether they instructed Nelson Piquet Jr to crash at the Singapore GP last year, as F1's latest crisis gathers speed.
It has emerged that the FIA conducted far-reaching interviews with senior Renault figures throughout the Belgian GP weekend, and that their inquiries spread beyond the initial allegations made.
At the time, the FIA stated that "an investigation is underway regarding alleged events at a previous world championship race", which is believed to surround the incident on lap 14 of last season's Singapore race, when Nelson Piquet Jr crashed his Renault, causing a safety car period that allowed Fernando Alonso to take the lead of a race he went on to win.
The FIA are believed to be investigating whether Piquet Jr was somehow ordered to crash by Flavio Briatore's team.
However, a source from within the FIA was quoted today as indicating that their investigation goes beyond that one issue, saying that: "There were interviews going on all weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, and other issues above and beyond Singapore are also to be looked at."
Pat Symonds, the Renault technical director, and Alonso himself were among the Renault employees interviewed "more than once" over the Belgian weekend.
There are no further details about what these "other issues" referred to by the source might be.
Although Renault are yet to release a statement over the situation, Bernie Ecclestone has said that team boss Flavio Briatore "knows nothing about" the allegations, and implied that Renault may well end up withdrawing from the sport over the investigation.
"This is not the sort of thing we need at the moment," Ecclestone stated, "I think it will piss off Renault, and them leaving the sport is a danger. I hope that it isn't like that, but it's the sort of thing that might happen."
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