London, Oct.5 Nelson Piquet Junior claims his former team Renault had "threatened" to withdraw his contract unless he agreed to purposefully crash during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

In what has become known as 'crashgate', the French manufacturer was last month found guilty of causing an accident to aid the cause of their driver Fernando Alonso, who went on to win the race.

The allegations cost former Renault team principal Flavio Briatore and executive director of engineering Pat Symonds their jobs, with the pair stepping down from their posts shortly after details of the incident were made public.

Renault were subsequently given a disqualification suspended until the end of the 2011 season for their role in Piquet Jr's crash.

"Some people have suggested that I was blackmailing Renault to continue my career but the situation was more complicated for a long time before," The Independent quoted Piquet Junior, as saying.

"At each race it was always the same story of threatening to withdraw my contract or the renewal for the next season. I made the allegation so that no other driver would go through what I went through and, more importantly, so that the whole episode would be clarified the way it has been," he added.

Piquet Jr also admitted he did not consider the impact the incident would have on his career, with the Brazilian coming in for a great deal of criticism from several figures in Formula One. (ANI)