Fernando Alonso before being overtaken by Daniel Ricciardo only a couple of laps before the finish. Alonso finished sixth in the championship, with only one other podium, a third-place finish in China. In spite of his worst championship position during his time with Ferrari, he was far ahead of teammate Kimi Räikkönen in the championship. Alonso had severe disagreements with team director Marco Mattiacci. In November 2014 both Alonso and Scuderia Ferrari announced that the season would be his last with the team, with former title rival Sebastian Vettel replacing Alonso at Ferrari for the following season, both drivers leaving their previous
Pat Symonds Symonds became the team's Technical Director. When Mike Gascoyne joined Benetton in 2001, Symonds was promoted to Executive Director of Engineering, a post which he retained though the transition to Renault ownership in 2002. In July 2009, Nelson Piquet, Jr. claimed Symonds asked him to deliberately crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to manufacture a situation which would assist team-mate Fernando Alonso to win the race. The ING Renault F1 Team released a statement on 16 September 2009 stating that Symonds was no longer part of the team. Symonds was subsequently suspended from F1 events for 5