Stepney apologizes to McLaren

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Stepney apologizes to McLarenRivalsDM
Updated: January 21, 2008, 5:56 AM EST 4 comments RSS digg blog email print Nigel Stepney has apologized to McLaren for the 2007 Stepneygate spy scandal, saying he never meant to cause the team harm.

Stepney was at the heart of last year's spy scandal after he reportedly passed on Ferrari's technical secrets to then McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.
The resulting action by the FIA saw McLaren thrown out of the constructors' championship and handed a record £50million fine. Stepney was also banned from working in Formula One for life.

However, while the former Ferrari mechanic admits to handing over the information to Coughlan, he says he never intended for it be used on McLaren's F1 cars. Rather, he had hoped that himself and Coughlan could use it to team up and find other employment.

"I don't feel responsible in anyway at all for what happened at McLaren," he said in an interview to be broadcast on Sky Sports' World Motorsports Show on Monday night.

"My original idea was to make contact with somebody, not to benefit, but to see what I could do somewhere else with a group of people.

"Obviously, it got a bit sensitive and somebody used information more than I actually thought it was, or not more than it should have been.

"It should never have been used to that extreme."

Stepney also reckons the fallout for last year's spy scandal still needs to be properly addressed by the sport's key figures.

"There is a lot being said, I wouldn't say it is all correct, but there is a lot underneath that hasn't been said that should have been," he added.

"It's been dramatised for various other reasons, which we will have to go into at a later date.

"Some stuff has been done politically, some stuff should have been bought out in a different way, but the end result, who knows whether it was right or wrong to make the season as it was?

"Lewis Hamilton did a fantastic job, there's no doubt about that."

As for his future, Stepney says he will remain in motorsport, although concedes that a return to F1 is out of the question.

"I've got a lot of other more interesting opportunities going back into... the grass roots of motor racing," he said.

"Don't get me wrong, Formula One I've worked in for many years, I've enjoyed it, I've made a living out of it, it's been a very good experience in life, but I think I... prefer to go into a sort of a grassroots racing again."