Motor race chiefs ‘to clear’ McLaren in F1 spying row

[The Stig]

Formula One team McLaren will escape punishment in the "spy" affair "because it is almost impossible to prove anything," according to one member of the World Motor Sports Council who will sit in judgment next week.

McLaren face an extraordinary meeting of the council in Paris to answer charges relating to the suspension of chief designer Mike Coughlan.


Team principal Ron Dennis has maintained his and his marque's innocence, insisting 780 pages of Ferrari technical documents were "only in the possession of one currently suspended employee" — namely Coughlan.

Dennis maintains that none of the information was or has been used to help his team this season, in which their brilliant young British driver Lewis Hamilton leads the standings by 12 points.

Joaquin Verdegay, one of 24 stewards who will be at the meeting, is quoted in a Spanish newspaper as saying: "It's very hard to prove McLaren used that information and that they used it knowing what they were doing. It's almost impossible to prove anything."