Among all the fuss created by Nelson Piquet Jr's attempted entry into last weekend's Formula 3 Pau Grand Prix, there was a surprising subplot that developed.
While there was plenty of support for Piquet for wanting to do something cool on a rare weekend off - a throwback to a bygone era of racing driver - there was also a backlash from some fans over his part in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix Renault crash scandal. But he's hardly the only driver to have crashed on purpose.
This is not something written in defence or support of Piquet. But there are other high-profile cases involving far more famous drivers who have been known to cause a deliberate accident. It seems that over time these drivers were forgiven, or their indiscretions forgotten, so why not treat Piquet the same way?
Are Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher - who are without doubt two of the greatest of all time - allowed to keep their reputations intact because of everything else they achieved in F1? Do we turn a blind eye to Senna famously wiping out Alain Prost in the ultimate pre-meditated attack at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix? What about Schumacher driving into Jacques Villeneuve at the conclusion of the 1997 season and then facing sanction again for his poor 'parking' efforts during qualifying for the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix? His collision with Damon Hill in Adelaide in 1994 is also up for debate, although that one probably depends on who you were a fan of at the time.
Another difference between those incidents and Piquet's Singapore crash is Senna and Schumacher made those decisions to actively hamper a rival, while Piquet's actions didn't involve directly targeting another driver. Understandably, those beaten by Alonso to victory that day might disagree - in particular the race leader at the time of Piquet's crash, narrow 2008 championship runner-up Felipe Massa.
In many ways, of the incidents we are looking at here, Senna's is by far the worst. It created the most danger, as not only was it the highest-speed of the crashes in question, but it involved deliberately colliding with another competitor, in front of 24 other cars charging towards Suzuka's quick first corner at the start of the race. The fact Senna was acting out in protest at his hard-earned pole position being placed on the dirty side of the grid - a valid injustice - doesn't excuse crashing into someone to make a point.
As Senna put it when he opened up one year later: "I was so frustrated I promised myself that if after the start I lose first place, I would go for it in the first corner - regardless of the result I would go for it and Prost wouldn't turn in the first corner ahead of me. And that's what took place. That was a result of the politicians making stupid decisions."
Schumacher's misdemeanours differ from the Senna and Piquet incidents in that they were almost certainly based on decisions made in the spur of the moment. Even the collision he was not punished for - with Hill in 1994 - if deliberate was surely a snap decision made out of desperation after he'd bashed the side of his Benetton against the wall just seconds before.
At Jerez in 1997, an incident that resulted in Schumacher being thrown out of that year's word championship, the onboard footage from his Ferrari's rollhoop is damning. Yes, things always look more dramatic in slow motion, but there is a clear instinctive move of the steering wheel to turn away from Villeneuve's incoming Williams, before Schumacher's brain overrules that natural reaction and decides in fact he would fancy a bite of the Canadian's sidepod with his right-front wheel. As Martin Brundle so famously put it during his live TV commentary, "That didn't work Michael, you hit the wrong part of him my friend".
Schumacher, unlike Senna in 1990, was punished for that collision, as he would be again in 2006 for causing a yellow flag at the end of qualifying to prevent championship rival Fernando Alonso from completing his final lap in their fight for pole position in Monaco.
Perhaps this is where we identify one of the key reasons behind Piquet's crash being harder for people to get over. Schumacher served his time, so to speak, by picking up punishments in '97 and '06. The same goes for Piquet's Renault bosses after the Singapore scandal, Pat Symonds and Flavio Briatore.
After serving a ban, Symonds has since returned to the F1 mainstream, now as chief technical officer at Williams. The F1 paddock has moved on from those dark events of 2008 and Symonds is allowed to get on with his life and his career. So is the problem with Piquet that he didn't serve a direct punishment? For his role in exposing the scandal in the first place, he was given immunity by the FIA.
At the time the scandal broke in the summer of 2009, Symonds was adamant in his statements that Piquet was the one to pitch the idea after Alonso's car broke down in qualifying, and that it was only then that team management give some thought to how to make it happen.
Who instigated the idea has never been proven. An anonymous whistle-blower from within Renault backed up Symonds' story, but the team also dropped its planned legal action against Piquet. The 'who started it?' debate fell by the wayside, so perhaps in the eyes of some, that made Piquet's lack of formal punishment all the more jarring.
But that doesn't mean he got away with it entirely. His reputation was tarnished, and he never started another grand prix. He attempted to rebuild his career in NASCAR's lower divisions, before expanding into rallycross and sportscars and taking up a drive in the inaugural season of Formula E - which he won, his first title since British F3 in 2004.
Some will scoff at the significance of winning the Formula E championship, but let's not forget that series has plenty of drivers who could make a valid claim to be on the F1 grid if this was an era where drivers were less reliant on bringing finance with them to secure a drive. And in Formula E season one, all the cars were the same, while the gap between some of the teams (Piquet's struggling NEXTEV TCR outfit included) has expanded in season two.
Who knows, perhaps if Piquet had been able to achieve something of note in F1, the good would have outweighed the bad when people reflect on his career. That certainly seems to have been the case for Senna and Schumacher, which is no bad thing. Years of hard work should not be forever defined by the occasional bad judgement. But without a chance for Piquet to repair his reputation on motorsport's grandest stage, and having received no formal punishment, it seems there will forever be those who won't be able to let it go.
If you're able to look past what the greats did wrong, why not cut someone without multiple F1 world titles on his CV some slack as well.
Among all the fuss created by Nelson Piquet Jr's attempted entry into last weekend's Formula 3 Pau Grand Prix, there was a surprising subplot that developed.
While there was plenty of support for Piquet for wanting to do something cool on a rare weekend off - a throwback to a bygone era of racing driver - there was also a backlash from some fans over his part in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix Renault crash scandal. But he's hardly the only driver to have crashed on purpose.
This is not something written in defence or support of Piquet. But there are other high-profile cases involving far more famous drivers who have been known to cause a deliberate accident. It seems that over time these drivers were forgiven, or their indiscretions forgotten, so why not treat Piquet the same way?
Are Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher - who are without doubt two of the greatest of all time - allowed to keep their reputations intact because of everything else they achieved in F1? Do we turn a blind eye to Senna famously wiping out Alain Prost in the ultimate pre-meditated attack at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix? What about Schumacher driving into Jacques Villeneuve at the conclusion of the 1997 season and then facing sanction again for his poor 'parking' efforts during qualifying for the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix? His collision with Damon Hill in Adelaide in 1994 is also up for debate, although that one probably depends on who you were a fan of at the time.
Another difference between those incidents and Piquet's Singapore crash is Senna and Schumacher made those decisions to actively hamper a rival, while Piquet's actions didn't involve directly targeting another driver. Understandably, those beaten by Alonso to victory that day might disagree - in particular the race leader at the time of Piquet's crash, narrow 2008 championship runner-up Felipe Massa.
In many ways, of the incidents we are looking at here, Senna's is by far the worst. It created the most danger, as not only was it the highest-speed of the crashes in question, but it involved deliberately colliding with another competitor, in front of 24 other cars charging towards Suzuka's quick first corner at the start of the race. The fact Senna was acting out in protest at his hard-earned pole position being placed on the dirty side of the grid - a valid injustice - doesn't excuse crashing into someone to make a point.
As Senna put it when he opened up one year later: "I was so frustrated I promised myself that if after the start I lose first place, I would go for it in the first corner - regardless of the result I would go for it and Prost wouldn't turn in the first corner ahead of me. And that's what took place. That was a result of the politicians making stupid decisions."
Schumacher's misdemeanours differ from the Senna and Piquet incidents in that they were almost certainly based on decisions made in the spur of the moment. Even the collision he was not punished for - with Hill in 1994 - if deliberate was surely a snap decision made out of desperation after he'd bashed the side of his Benetton against the wall just seconds before.
At Jerez in 1997, an incident that resulted in Schumacher being thrown out of that year's word championship, the onboard footage from his Ferrari's rollhoop is damning. Yes, things always look more dramatic in slow motion, but there is a clear instinctive move of the steering wheel to turn away from Villeneuve's incoming Williams, before Schumacher's brain overrules that natural reaction and decides in fact he would fancy a bite of the Canadian's sidepod with his right-front wheel. As Martin Brundle so famously put it during his live TV commentary, "That didn't work Michael, you hit the wrong part of him my friend".
Schumacher, unlike Senna in 1990, was punished for that collision, as he would be again in 2006 for causing a yellow flag at the end of qualifying to prevent championship rival Fernando Alonso from completing his final lap in their fight for pole position in Monaco.
Perhaps this is where we identify one of the key reasons behind Piquet's crash being harder for people to get over. Schumacher served his time, so to speak, by picking up punishments in '97 and '06. The same goes for Piquet's Renault bosses after the Singapore scandal, Pat Symonds and Flavio Briatore.
After serving a ban, Symonds has since returned to the F1 mainstream, now as chief technical officer at Williams. The F1 paddock has moved on from those dark events of 2008 and Symonds is allowed to get on with his life and his career. So is the problem with Piquet that he didn't serve a direct punishment? For his role in exposing the scandal in the first place, he was given immunity by the FIA.
At the time the scandal broke in the summer of 2009, Symonds was adamant in his statements that Piquet was the one to pitch the idea after Alonso's car broke down in qualifying, and that it was only then that team management give some thought to how to make it happen.
Who instigated the idea has never been proven. An anonymous whistle-blower from within Renault backed up Symonds' story, but the team also dropped its planned legal action against Piquet. The 'who started it?' debate fell by the wayside, so perhaps in the eyes of some, that made Piquet's lack of formal punishment all the more jarring.
But that doesn't mean he got away with it entirely. His reputation was tarnished, and he never started another grand prix. He attempted to rebuild his career in NASCAR's lower divisions, before expanding into rallycross and sportscars and taking up a drive in the inaugural season of Formula E - which he won, his first title since British F3 in 2004.
Some will scoff at the significance of winning the Formula E championship, but let's not forget that series has plenty of drivers who could make a valid claim to be on the F1 grid if this was an era where drivers were less reliant on bringing finance with them to secure a drive. And in Formula E season one, all the cars were the same, while the gap between some of the teams (Piquet's struggling NEXTEV TCR outfit included) has expanded in season two.
Who knows, perhaps if Piquet had been able to achieve something of note in F1, the good would have outweighed the bad when people reflect on his career. That certainly seems to have been the case for Senna and Schumacher, which is no bad thing. Years of hard work should not be forever defined by the occasional bad judgement. But without a chance for Piquet to repair his reputation on motorsport's grandest stage, and having received no formal punishment, it seems there will forever be those who won't be able to let it go.
If you're able to look past what the greats did wrong, why not cut someone without multiple F1 world titles on his CV some slack as well.