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The Ferrari espionage row has been
sensationally reopened by the FIA this afternoon as the governing body of F1 has
now changed direction and sent its verdict not to dole out any punishment to the
McLaren team to its court of appeal. FIA President Max Mosley said the new
decision was due to "the importance of public confidence in the outcome."
The abrupt about turn
comes after a letter was sent to the FIA yesterday by the
President of the Italian motor sporting body, the CSAI,
Luigi Macaluso. "We must confess we find it very difficult
to justify how a team has not been penalised while it has
been found in breach of clause 151c on the International
Sporting Code," said Macaluso in the letter which was
published today on the FIA's website. "Indeed, this is
probably the most fundamental provision of our sport," it
continued. "In the present case the infringement is very
serious since it has been assessed that the team Vodafone
McLaren Mercedes has repeatedly breached such provision,
over several months, through several to team
representatives, to the detriment of its most direct
competitor and therefore to its direct or indirect advantage
and knowing that such infringement would still be ongoing
would it had not been fortuitously discovered.
Noting
that the FIA hearing had found the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes
team in breach of clause 151c, the CSAI's letter adds. "We
cannot see why additional conditions would have to be
demonstrated in order for a penalty to be inflicted."
The CSAI
then suggests that the FIA "submit the matter to the
International Court of Appeal of the FIA and allow Ferrari
to present its case," something that was denied to the
Italian F1 team last week as they attended the Paris hearing
only in the capacity of observers.
Mosley wrote back to the CSAI today saying that if "it were
clear that several of McLaren's top representatives were
aware of the Ferrari information over a period of several
months, the situation indeed would be very serious." He also
pointed out that it was not just a case of technology being
used on the current McLaren F1 car but that "detailed
knowledge of Ferrari's technical strategies would give
McLaren significant and unfair advantages over Ferrari at
every race."
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FIA President Max Mosley said this afternoon the
decision to send the Ferrari spying case to the FIA
Court of Appeal was due to "the importance of public
confidence in the outcome." |
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Former Scuderia Ferrari
engineer Nigel Stepney (above left, with Ross Brawn)
stands accused of passing large quantities of vital
information to McLaren Chief Designer Mike Coughlan. |
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"McLaren's case was that, except for a tip-off in March and
a drawing shown briefly to a colleague as a historical
curiosity, no-one at McLaren knew of or had access to any of
the information," explained Mosley of the FIA's surprising
verdict not to hand out any punishment to McLaren-Mercedes
despite finding them guilty; in the letter he goes on to
say: "According to McLaren, it was acquired privately by a
disgruntled employee who intended to leave. They inferred he
never used Ferrari's information to help McLaren because it
was to be part of his private database as technical director
for another team," he added.
He did
say though that there were a "a number of suspicious
elements, all of which the World Motorsports Council took
into account when reaching its decision." These Mosley then
went on to list to include "the claim that the tip-off was
the only information that passed in March; the failure to
inform Ferrari of a spy when negotiating an agreement based
on mutual trust; the installation of a 'firewall' at McLaren
to stop Stepney communicating, with no similar attempt at a
similar block on Coughlan's private computers; McLaren's
agreement to Coughlan travelling to Barcelona 'to ask
Stepney to stop communicating' rather than simply phone him;
the fact that, far from ceasing communication, Coughlan
returned from Barcelona with a vast quantity of Ferrari
data; the failure to make clear what Coughlan was working on
at McLaren while in possession of the data; Jonathon Neale's
advice to Coughlan to destroy documents, without knowing or
wanting to know what they were, and so on."
These
contentious points and others will now be considered by the
FIA Court of Appeal where the Ferrari team will be able to
present full details of its case. The hearing is expected to
take place during late August.
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