> Ferrari-McLaren Spy scandal

SOURCE: FIA statement on McLaren hearing - Planet-F1 News - from planet-f1.com

we call it sweeping dirt under the carpet

Don't blame them. The poster boy of F1 can't be banned from racing.

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Safin's Signature:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw

The statement is like
& i thnk Safin is r8

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stridEr's Signature:

that's not a news at all...it was inevitable.

^^ Yeah I guess, but with the recent hype, it got you second doubting you know.

Acc. to FIA - "The WMSC is satisfied that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes was in possession of confidential Ferrari information and is therefore in breach of article 151c of the International Sporting Code"

and still no punishment?? clearly suggests article 151c has no meaning at all...
from now on all other teams are entitled to breach article 151c

Yeah.. This is disappointing.

McLaren should be punished...

this is a farce sweeping act. it found guilty then they should be punished.

They had the information...but didnt use it.

See, it is a technicality. Michael Coughlan had the information. He was an employee of McLaren. So, technically McLaren had the information.

Now this isnt fair. Coughlan was a rogue emplyee (same as Nigel Stepney). How can you penalise McLaren for that ?? He wasnt asked by the team to contact Stepney and get the information.

There is a very big difference. Dont just take the wordings of the result and crucify the team.

McLaren is a HUGE team. It is not possible for them to know what each and every employee is doing at a certain time. There is a certain thing called trust. They trusted Coughlan not to do anything stupid. He broke their trust. He isnt the first one and will not be the last.

Punish Coughlan. Not the whole team.

You guys simply jump the gun...

Ferrari furious at hearing outcome

Ferrari has responded with anger and disgust to the FIA's decision not to penalise McLaren for possessing leaked data.

At today's extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris, McLaren was found guilty of having broken the sporting code when a 780-page dossier of Ferrari information was found at chief designer Mike Coughlan's home – but was not punished because there was "insufficient evidence" that the team had made use of the data.

This decision has enraged Ferrari, which believes the guilty verdict should have carried a punishment regardless of whether there was proof that McLaren had benefited from the information.

"Ferrari notes that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has been found guilty by the FIA World Council," said a Ferrari statement.

"It therefore finds it incomprehensible that violating the fundamental principle of sporting honesty does not have, as a logical and inevitable consequence, the application of a sanction."

The FIA's original summons to McLaren referred only to the team having "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 1 car."

Ferrari vehemently rejected McLaren's defence that the case related only to a rogue individual rather than the team as a whole.

It claimed that the FIA verdict undermined Formula 1.

"Today's decision legitimises dishonest behaviour in Formula 1 and sets a very serious precedent," the statement continued.

"In fact, the decision of the World Council signifies that possession, knowledge at the very highest level and use of highly confidential information acquired in an illicit manner and the acquiring of confidential information over the course of several months, represent violations that do not carry any punishment.

"The fact that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes was in possession of such information was discovered totally by accident and, but for this, the team would continue to have it.

"This is all the more serious as it has occurred in a sport like Formula 1 in which small details make all the difference.

"Ferrari feels this is highly prejudicial to the credibility of the sport."

The team did not make any comment about whether it would appeal against the FIA's decision, but it will continue to pursue the cases it has brought against Coughlan and its former engineer Nigel Stepney, who is the alleged source of the leak.

"It will continue with the legal action already under way within the Italian criminal justice system and in the civil court in England," Ferrari's statement concluded.


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Ron Dennis accepts FIA verdict

McLaren boss Ron Dennis has accepted the FIA's decision not to penalise his team for possessing confidential Ferrari data, even if he was unhappy that the squad was not completely exonerated.

The FIA concluded that while the discovery of Ferrari documents at McLaren designer Mike Coughlan's home meant the team had breached the sporting regulations, it was impossible to prove that the data had been used by McLaren.

Dennis's squad therefore escaped punishment, but was warned that if new evidence came to light suggesting that McLaren had benefited from the information, the team could be excluded from both the 2007 and 2008 world championships.

Speaking to reporters outside the FIA headquarters in Paris, Dennis said the verdict was fair, if not quite as unequivocal as he had hoped.

"[McLaren is] not entirely happy with the outcome of the hearing, but the punishment fits the crime," he said.

The team later issued an official statement acknowledging the reasoning behind the FIA's decision – and describing McLaren's transgression of the sporting rules as a "purely technical breach".

"A unanimous decision has been taken by the FIA which in McLaren's opinion is very balanced and fair," it said.

"McLaren accepts the that the FIA World Motor Sport Council had no alternative other than to find that there was a purely technical breach by reason of the possession of certain information by one individual at his home, without McLaren's knowledge or authority.

"McLaren is delighted that the World Motor Sport Council determined that this information was not used and accordingly imposed no sanction whatsoever on the team."