GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Chameleon on July 03, 2007, 09:15:35 PM
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F1 Fanatic has a post entitled "McLaren Linked to Ferrari Espionage Scandal. Read it here:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2007/07/03/mclaren-linked-to-ferrari-espionage-scandal/
It all sounds a bit unlikely to me but maybe I am too innocent for this modern world... :o
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I have and there does seem to be an issue.
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It looks like McLaren are prepared to tackle any alleged wrong doing head on. It has invited the FIA to conduct a full review of its cars to prove that it has not gained from any intellectual property belonging to Ferrari.
http://www.crash.net/news_view~cid~1~id~150653.htm
I wonder why Mike Coughlan has been so quiet while Stepney has been so vociferous.
Adam Cooper's step by step analysis of the whole saga.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/60467
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Steven , This article throws up more questions that it answered.
Industrial Espionage is a real issue in F1 and teams go to extreme lengths and install various security measures. Someone like Stephny obviously would know all those and would be extremely stupid to be caught on CCTV's one of the most rudimentary surveillance devices.
Assuming he even did so, a fifth grader wouldn't keep the evidence at home. Its a no brainer.
Finding ferrari designs in someone homes is laughable. Even if the Mclaren guy has received it wouldn't he know that NIgel is under suspicion. It has been all over the world on the spat between ferrari and Nigel and the Mclaren guy should be having an IQ for 42 to keep designs at home.
Other questions?
Presumably the Mclaren engineer is on a salary. What incentive does he have to indulge in Industrial Espionage at a personal level. He will get paid whatever happens ! Unless he wanted to sell these designs to a third party and make money. Assuming so why would he very conveniently keep them at his home ?
There is more to it than that is being reported.
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I think the questions it raises are the whole point to the article.
Stepney claims to have booked his holiday through the Ferrari travel office but they deny it. Who do you believe?
If he did have anything at his house including 2 steering wheels why would he leave them there and go on holiday? Presumably if the intent was to pass them to Mike Coughlan he would have sent them before he went away. What information is anyone going to get from a steering wheel? No team is going to put anything sensitive or illegal on a wheel because half the people at a race meeting know how to remove the wheel and disappear with it. Unless some wheels are more equal than others.
How was he able to get all this stuff out of the factory? Documentation is easy to hide but 2 steering wheels?
Just because Mike Coughlan received information doesn't mean he solicited it or indeed even read it.
Coughlan and Stepney have been around for a long time and should be way to smart to get caught up in anything like this.
If Ferrari is up to some kind of dirty tricks campaign to discredit Nigel Stepney then they would love to aim some mud at McLaren as well. If that was their aim then Mike Coughlan would be their numbe one target because he has worked with Stepney quite a bit over the years.
I am surprised Mike Coughlan's lawyers haven't made some kind of statement.
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A few days ago when this all started I said it was a typical Italian sham. The more I read the more convinced I get.
It's British GP time. Ferrari are afraid of another thrashing by Mc Laren. They have got to sound like the underdogs, and while they're at it put a bit of confusion and disruption into Mclaren just when they least need it.
Stepney called it dirty tricks? I second that.
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This just appeared in Autosport. Read and laugh. :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:
Who do Ferrari think they're trying to kid.
Non-F1 source tipped off Ferrari
By Jonathan Noble Thursday, July 5th 2007, 12:23 GMT
Ferrari have revealed that they were tipped off about McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan possibly having Ferrari documents by someone outside of Formula One.
In a statement issued by the Maranello outfit on Thursday, Ferrari confirmed that the team swung into action after receiving the information, and began legal proceedings through the London High Court.
The Italian squad, who on Tuesday said that "a search was carried out of the (McLaren) engineer's house", clarified on Thursday that British police had not yet been involved in the investigation.
The statement said: "Ferrari wishes to clarify that the English police have so far not been involved in investigating the theft of technical information.
"It was brought to Ferrari's attention by a third party outside Formula One racing within the last fortnight, that a senior member of the technical staff within the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team might be in possession of highly sensitive Ferrari information.
"Ferrari reviewed the evidence and consulted London lawyers towards the end of last week. Ferrari then made an urgent application to the High Court in London on 2 July for the court's assistance.
"As is usual with this kind of court order, Ferrari is currently prevented by the court from making any public statement about the information that it gained as a result of serving the court order.
"At the same time, an investigation is being carried out into the same subject by the Modena Court, therefore no further comment will be forthcoming, in order to respect the legal process in both countries."
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I don't know. The whole thing seems insane to me. I find it impossible to believe that Stepney or Coughlan would be involved in such underhand dealings and yet, at the same time, it also would appear very short-sighted of Ferrari to make it all up. The British end seem pretty sure that Ferrari plans were found in the Coughlan home and even McLaren seem to be admitting it. But, as has been pointed out, what possible benefit could they be to the McLaren designer?
The world has gone mad... :confused:
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If as Ferrari say the English police have not been involved in investigating the theft are we supposed to believe that they carried out the search and sent the evidence to the Italian police. Since there is no 'evidence' that Mike Coughlan had possesion of the info outside the UK the only place he can be charged is the UK therefore there is no way the evidence will be let out of the country until the legal preceedings are completed.
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Bernie Ecclestone and sources close to Max Mosley have allayed fears that the Ferrari-McLaren spy scandal could affect the outcome of the drivers' world championship.
F1 chief executive Ecclestone, however, warned that if McLaren is found guilty by the newly established FIA investigation, constructors' points could be docked.
But he said similar fates were not likely to dent Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso's charge for the title.
Paddocktalk.com (http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=59838&newlang=&topic=1&catid=1)
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I read Bernie's comments in a few places today. I will never understand how anyone can believe that the performance of the car and the driver in that car are not related. If McLaren benefited then by definition the drivers benefited.
Quite why Bernie feels the need to specify punishments that officially at least he has no involvement in I can't understand.
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Quite why Bernie feels the need to specify punishments that officially at least he has no involvement in I can't understand.
My sentiments exactly. It's none of his business. The FIA decides such things.
OR DOES IT ?
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This Stinks and I am sure some mud will stick somewhere. But the charge and the allegations and findings appear implausible and naive and probably have been thought up by someone.
Its actually quite perplexing and I had read about what bernie said too.
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There is a quote from Ron Dennis on teletext today.
'It has been a difficult two or three days. I live and breathe this team and there is no way anything incorrect would happen in our team.'
That seems fairly definite.
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I have been extremely unsure about this whole thing (in spite of John Bull's assurances that it is typical of Italian intrigue) but today I begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. There are too many odd facts that don't add up.
1 Stepney has returned to Italy and been interrogated by the Italian police. Would he risk Italian justice if he were guilty?
2 It seems the British police were not involved in the raid on Coughlan's residence. But that raises the question of who was and what right they had to do it. Ferrari talk about getting the court's permission - but does that mean I can apply to the court to search my neighbour's house, be granted it and then carry out the search myself? I doubt it. Something dodgy going on there.
3 There are hints that another McLaren employee is implicated. Apparently, the tip-off to Ferrari came from an employee of a print company who was asked by Coughlan to copy the documents - presumably so that the other McLaren employee could have his own copy. Huh? Are they trying to tell me that the chief designer didn't have the simple computer facilities to make his own copies? I'll bet every one of us has a set up that could churn out as many copies as you like within minutes. I don't buy that one.
Today I find myself coming down on the side of John Bull. Shoulda guessed he would know what he was talking about... ;)
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I hadn't read that. Two of the best technical minds in F1 couldn't figure out how to work a copier or a scanner? Nigel Stepney went into a copy shop with documents which would clearly have 'restricted' or something similar stamped on them? Presumably if he was going to steal documentation he would have stolen copies and not the originals. Anyone with a basic grasp of document cotrol knows that the original will be missed sooner or later.
So either Stepney wanted to keep a copy for himself(why?) or he stole the originals, had them copied and then took them back past the security to put them back. It's insane.
Presumably the guy in the copy shop waited a few days before he decided that what he had seen was suspicious and then phoned Ferrari. Why didn't he phone them straight away then they could have caught Stepney red-handed?
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Steven ! I think we should forget this. This whole thing is insulting the intelligence of fifth grader. Even the most budget strapped f1 teams today have a security apparatus which includes
Access Control - Finger Print or Retinal.
They will have copy protection , document count.
They will have firewalls and internal systems to check and track the copies being made.
Internally there will be "off limit" areas with surveillance and record keeping.
They will have scanners and other devices which can detect even a unauthorised pencil from being carried out.
All this is networked with real time capture of information.
They will have security systems more befitting a top secret lab.
I can go on ......
Who are they Kidding ??????
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The one interesting thing about this is that no-one seems prepared to believe that Nigel Stepney would get involved in anything illegal. Yet he was chief mechanic on all the dodgy Benettons and was heavily involved in the not absolutely legal Ferraris. Does this mean that passin information is seen as something so much worse that it is to big a step to believe he would do it? Or is it no-one is prepared to believe anything Ferrari says?
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Good points, Steven. Personally, I don't know Stepney so I have no idea what he's capable of - I can only listen to what I'm told and try to make some sense of it. All along I have tried to be open-minded and not jump to conclusions about anything (read the post on my blog on the subject and you'll see that's exactly how I was suggesting the fans proceed: wait and see).
But so many conflicting and strange facts are being revealed that it looks more and more as though there is much more going on behind the scenes than we are aware of. Certainly, if Stepney and Coughlan were involved in industrial espionage, they seem to have gone about it in such a ham-fisted way that one wonders how they ever managed to do their jobs as competently as they have done.
Curiouser and curiouser...
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I hadn't read that. Two of the best technical minds in F1 couldn't figure out how to work a copier or a scanner? Nigel Stepney went into a copy shop with documents which would clearly have 'restricted' or something similar stamped on them? Presumably if he was going to steal documentation he would have stolen copies and not the originals. Anyone with a basic grasp of document cotrol knows that the original will be missed sooner or later.
So either Stepney wanted to keep a copy for himself(why?) or he stole the originals, had them copied and then took them back past the security to put them back. It's insane.
Presumably the guy in the copy shop waited a few days before he decided that what he had seen was suspicious and then phoned Ferrari. Why didn't he phone them straight away then they could have caught Stepney red-handed?
It's worse than that, Steven. The story is that it was Coughlan, not Stepney, who tried to get the documents copied by a print firm. How much sense does that make...?
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Whatever it is, it seems to be working. Just look at the situation at Silverstone right now.
They have succeeded in disrupting Mc Laren's normal cool.
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I've just read that the German press is reporting that Stepney offered the documents to Honda first, but Honda turned him down. They are also saying that McLaren's suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan intended to defect to Honda, and take several key engineers with him.
In case you ever wondered what F1 would be like if it was run by Robert Ludlum......
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This is getting totally out of hand.
Absolutely pure, unadulterated comic opera. :yahoo:
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Things begin to return to earth it seems - this report in Autosport brings the emphasis back from espionage to job interviews: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/60550
Now that I can believe...
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OK I am going to ask. Why would Mike Coughlan copy whateve it was?
The job interview thing is obviously the trigger. The obvious question from that is if you are Nick Fry and your team is struggling badly and you get two of the most clued up guys in the F1 paddock not only offering their services but to bring along others from the two most successful teams why don't you sign them up? Either they have something better lined up or the Japanese are intent on doing things their way. I guess the other question is why did Nigel Stepney go on holiday when he did? It seems a strange time for hte head of team performance or whatever half-baked job title he has to take time off?
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The documents copied are supposed to have been not just plans but details of strategy and so on. Why would Coughlan copy them? Who knows? But it makes a good story of how the whole thing was found out... ;)
Do we know that Nick didn't sign up either or both of Stepney and Coughlan? He might have for next year, for instance. But maybe he was not empowered to make them an offer there and then; very often this sort of job is a matter of months of negotiation. As to why Stepney went on holiday when he did, I suspect that you have answered your own question, Steven. If the job he was doing was more a title than anything else, something to keep him out of the way until the team for next year has been decided, it wouldn't really matter when he took a holiday. To my mind, the holiday thing is the weirdest of all. When one side says he ran away and the other says it was a planned and booked holiday, one or the other is clearly lying. Surely it should not be too hard to find out which one?
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I'm sorry friends, but I'm taking all this with a pinch of salt.
What is wrong with intelligent people like Stepney and Coughlan looking for a job with better prospects, challenge, call it what you please.
People are doing this all the time. People are being poached from one team to the next all the time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I still maintain that the purpose of this whole sham is for Ferrari to try their hardest to distract Mc Laren at a very important time in the championship.
Like I've said before, I live next door to Italy. I spend alot of time with Italians. I know just how they tick, and they are not the most sporting nation in the world.
So it started with Stepney putting gun powder in Massa's tank at Monaco, then it became Stepney passing secret documents to Coughlan. Then Coughlan's house was searched and the documents found. Then the house wasn't searched.
Oh for god's sake, do they make us all out to be as gullible as your average Ferrari fan.
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I think Ferrari are trying to stop Stepney and Coughlan going to Honda. When they heard about the joint interview they obviously decided that they didn't want Honda hiring a group of Ferrari and McLaren senior people.
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More fool Fry for spilling the beans, frankly.
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Well, Fry maintains that he told Ferrari and McLaren of the interviews at the time. As you say, it is perfectly acceptable that employees of one company are allowed to seek employment elsewhere if they wish. Ferrari already knew that Stepney wasn't happy because he'd told the press so. It might have been a bit more of a surprise to McLaren that Coughlan was thinking of going but I doubt it. They would certainly have taken it a good deal easier than Ferrari would have taken Stepney's perceived desertion.
What remains to be seen is the nature of the documents (more than 500 pages apparently) taken from Coughlan's home. There must be something in that or Ferrari would be opening itself up to ridicule and possible legal action.
Oh, and the white powder is now being described as "detergent", although I much prefer John Bull's suggestion that it was gunpowder... :yahoo:
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I know Nick Fry is clueless but if someone comes to seek employment you do not shop him to his boss. That is probably the craziest thing I have heard in this whole affair. I assume someone has explained to Mr. Fry that F1 is known as the piranha club not the koi karp pond. Why would you do such a thing? What can he possibly gain from it? No wonder his team is crap if every time they get a chance to progress he tells the guys at the front of the grid about it. I can't imagine anyone who is considering moving to Honda would go anywhere near it now.
What is detergent going to do? It may dissolve in the fuel and be flushed through the system but not much else. Even if it damages an engine it would only be the Friday engine which is going to be out of the car on Friday night. Maybe Ferrari are worried that it would blow bubbles out of the exhaust and make them look silly.
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To give Fry his due, I'm not sure that it was a case of shopping the guys to their bosses. It may have been that Stepney and Coughlan wanted everything to be above board and assured Fry that their teams knew they were looking elsewhere. Certainly in Stepney's case, he had already made clear that he was open to offers in an earlier interview with Autosport magazine. But, whatever the truth, it's clear that nothing illegal went on in the interviews.
As for the detergent, I dunno, tomorrow it will probably turn out to be Montezemolo's face powder that dropped off in a visit to the factory...
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Honda were always going to be involved and when a person leaves a team he goes with most valueable piece of Information ever stored. His brain.
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For the first time in my life I'm actually looking forward to that twit of an Italian F1 commentator on telly.
I'd love to know what he's going to come up with today and tomorrow.
I think I'll even record qualifying today, just so I can listen to the rubbish over and over again, and then pass it over to you lot for you to have a laugh too. :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:
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Do that, John - sounds like it could be a good laugh. ;)
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Hey guys, it was worth it. Right on queue the Italian commentator called it SPY STORY and even gave it Pink Panther background music.
Every question he asked everybody revolved around SPY STORY. Bugger the rest of the proceedings. He interviewed Mario Illien in German which I don't understand. I could see from his expressions that Illien's reply was something to the effect that it should all be taken with a pinch of salt, but his translation to his Italian audience was something to the effect that this is very serious and the FIA should investigate it seriously. I'd love to know what Illien actually said but I bet it's nothing like that.
He even had the cheek to interview Ron Dennis and Ron gave him a typical load of ronspeak which he promptly totally misinterpreted. Ronspeak will have gone right over his head.
Next on the interview list was Flav who shugged it all off as a journalists joke, much to the commentator's disgust.
In between all this there were pictures of a jubilant Stepney with Michael S, and pictures of Ferrari mechanics wiping dust from under a car. Real theatre! :-[
But the classic came just as qualifying finished when he interviewed one of the Ferrari lot, Baldisseri I think. I couldn't believe the question. I nearly fell off my seat. Luka, do you think we are not on pole because they have managed to temporarily distract Ferrari with this latest scandal?
Oh, and among all this Lewis pulled a fantastic lap out of the bag to take a superb pole, but the commentator was too busy talking about his SPY STORY to even notice it or give it any credit.
I'm looking forward to part 2 tomorrow.
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Amazing how much the view changes according to where you stand... ;)
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Stepney has made a very full statement to the press. The text is here:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/60613
It sounds very plausible to me, particularly as there are echoes of what other people have said about Ferrari's ways of working back in the pre-Schumacher/Todt/Brawn days. I think it's a telling point that he hasn't actually been charged with anything and is just under investigation.
But make up your own mind...
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I have to say I believe everything he said. It makes sense. Ilove the comment that he knows where the bodies are buried. I guess that is a threat to Ferrari to back off or he will talk. Ferrari as usual have not thought through their strategy. If the guy becomes unemployable by an F1 team his only source of income is going to be telling his story in a book and on TV and I assume that is the last thing Ferrari wants. I can't wait until someone sticks a microphone in front of Ross Brawn to get his opinion.
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One thing is certain after this farse, and that is that Ross Brawn will be having very serious doubts about returning to Italy, and in particular to Ferrari.
We seem to be going back to the days of Dragoni. Anyone remember him as Ferrari team manager? He really was a dragon.
Off to watch the GP now.
Lewis and Massa will probably be running light, Kimi and Nando will be heavy as usual. That should make it interesting. Italian telly says nando has 4 more laps than Lewis and Kimi has even more. We'll see.
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PART 2.
Looks like all the Italians are jumping on the band wagon and coming to the sort of conclusions we expect out of them.The first words the Italian commentator uttered were SPY STORY, though there was no Pink Panther music today. He actually had the cheek to bring it up again with Ron D, and of course Ron gave him the usual ronspeak speil which I have no doubt he didn't understand a word of.
He also managed to interview Flav again on the subject. Flav simply said there is no place for spies in F1 but again asked the commentator not to jump to conclusions, which is in fact the same answer he got when he interviewed Bernie E.
Luca Montezemolo gave a phone interview and was more accusing, saying that the result was poetic justice and had given Mc Laren what they deserved, and he was thrilled that it happened at Silverstone. Sounded just like a Mussolini or Hitler speech.
Frankly there was more talk on how lousy Mc Laren and Ron Dennis are than the actual race itself. I was surprised that Alesi too was completely damning and had already made his mind up that Ferrari had been robbed and that Mc laren were the villains. I have hitherto credited him with more sense. Cesare Fiorio on the other hand was completely reserved on the matter and once again told everyone in no uncertain manner that they were all jumping to conclusions and he preferred to wait for an official verdict. Sensible guy.
The race itself, although my heart said Hamilton, my mind all along said Kimi. I think Mc Laren got it wrong again putting Lewis on hard tyres in the first stint. Running light, he needed to pull out as much as possible. Alonso proved that the car was much quicker on the soft tyres. I would have thought they would have known this.
I also think, though hindsight is a wonderful thing, that they could have put another second's worth of fuel in Alonso's car at his first stop. This would have reduced the deficit and he just may have managed to come out in front of Kimi again. Having said all this, both Ferraris were considerably faster than Mc laren today.
And Lewis got his 9th podiums in as many starts.
Good races by Massa and Kubica but we may as well have gone to sleep after the second lot of pit stops. Unless the system is changed we might as well reduce races to 2/3rds distance and wave the checkered flag a lap after the leader's last stop.
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http://f1insight.madtv.me.uk/
Went there,are you just riding on the back of GP Wizard Chamelon??
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All my own work, Stig - I read the news and form my own opinions. Have been blogging F1 for over a year now (previous blog http://www.formula1latest.com/ but ignore the Hamilton groupie posts after May 22nd - it's now being written by an idiot who merely regurgitates what he reads in the tabloid press).
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Ooooh, sharp, mind you don't cut yourself Chameleon.
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To be honest, I'm not quite sure what the Stig meant by that, Ian. Just trying to clarify...
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There seems to be quite a lot said and written about all this yet nothing at all in here.
Is it possible it doesn't interest anyone, and no one has any views on the matter?
It looks like the whole thing has taken a new tack over the last couple of days, and it's looking more and more likely that Ron is right and Mc Laren really don't have anything to do with it at all.
So will Ferrari apologise to Ron? I doubt it.
And if it turns out that all the Ferrari accusations and digs at Mc Laren were completely unfounded, will the FIA punish Ferrari? I doubt that too.
Such is the state of Formula 1 in the Mosley/Bernie era.
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I think maybe people are waiting to see what happens, John. It interests me because I marvel at the machinations of others and wonder about motives, but perhaps it's not the sort of thing the average F1 fan wants to know about. It's not good to have your heroes dragged through the dirt, after all.
From today's developments, it seems that there is some substance in the matter of Coughlan having Ferrari documents but we still don't know exactly what they are (perhaps never will). Court case adjourned until tomorrow. But the focus is shifting on to Coughlan rather than Stepney now...
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Think it just died out johnbull
Pretty much what you predicted turned out
Curious as to where this ends up leading to
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With so many different stories coming from so many different sources, I'm just waiting to see how it all shakes out.
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Looks as though it's all heading back to Italy, Cos: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/60706
In which case you could be in for a long wait... ;)
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The whole thing is so typically Italian.
Big fuss. Blame everyone. Then just let it fade away.
I'm still waiting to see what the FIA is going to do about it, now that Mc laren's image has been tarnished unnecessarily.
But I suppose I had better not hold my breath.
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John ! Ferrari have struck a deal with the Mclaren engineer who has agreed to apparently cooperate. God only kows what it means ?
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What it means is that the target has always been Stepney, not Coughlan. They just want something to link the documents with Stepney. The fact that McLaren has had its reputation questioned in the meantime doesn't seem to matter...
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The document below, copied from Autosport just about sums up Ferrari and the Italians in their true colours.
No wonder they are disliked and mistrusted by so many people.
Two faced gits, the lot of them. >:D
In a statement issued by Ferrari this evening, the team confirm this agreement but make it clear their case against the Coughlans is not over.
"In light of the hearing yesterday in the High Court in London," Ferrari stated, "relating to the case between Ferrari S.p.A. and the Coughlans, Ferrari wishes to make clear the following:
"The legal teams on both sides had reached an agreement on two procedural points that were to be discussed in a further hearing this morning.
"Therefore, the hearing in which these procedural points were to be discussed has been cancelled.
"Mike Coughlan has today provided Ferrari with an affidavit relating to relevant facts and Ferrari has agreed not to forward the affidavit to the Italian criminal authorities.
"The agreement reached between the parties therefore concerns only the procedural aspects mentioned above.
"The case brought by Ferrari in England against the Coughlans therefore continues in terms of what is decided by the High Court in London."
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I must admit I am finding it all fascinating, as McLaren seem to be very firm in their denials whilst Ferrari seem to be doing a lot of sabre rattling. I am just waiting to see how things pan out, probably after the extradordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council before really saying much else. I just do not see McLaren would be so dumb as to get caught cheating and I think they are unfairly being dragged through the undergrowth.
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Apparently, the affidavit was given on the understanding that Ferrari would not use it in the Stepney investigation by the courts in Italy. Now the High Court has to decide whether there is a case for the Coughlans to answer. No mention has been made of the next hearing date so who knows how long that will take?
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More news in Autosport. The FIA are said to be investigating Mc. Laren.
Are the FIA really that thick, or are they just as bent as Ferrari.
If I understand their logic, if I work with a company making toy elephants, but I'm caught feeding canabis to clockwork mice in my back yard at home, then my employers are responsible for my behaviour.
My golly you Brits are lucky Max didn't make it into politics.
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The case has taken another turn. I was just checking the FIA's website about Indy, and found this in the press section:
Representatives of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes have been requested to appear before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Thursday, July 26, 2007.
The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between March and July 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, including information that could be used to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and/or run a 2007 Ferrari Formula One car.
Cos
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Just read it too.
Unbelievable, isn't it.
And Max and the FIA expect us to take them seriously.
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The FIA have to be seen doing something or we might suspect that they aren't doing their jobs. But how they expect to be able to work out whether any parts on the McLaren were influenced by the Ferrari documents is beyond me. Just because a part looks very similar to its equivalent on another car doesn't mean that copying has taken place - it's just evidence that engineers tend to come to the same conclusions independently when trying to achieve the same object.
The real problem is the the FIA are so unpredictable in matters like these. Remember the mass damper decision that seemed to be based on no logic at all (mass dampers movable aerodynamic devices indeed!). Anything could happen once those idiots get involved and, if they decide to start docking points, they will seriously damage a sport that is already a laughing stock in some quarters.