Espionage at Ferrari and McLaren

[allan]

I think we should wait and see. If other Mclaren members knew about those documents, then Mclaren is guilty, no doubt. However, i still believe that deducting points, or even excluding Mclaren from the championship, is a little too harsh; not to forget that it would ruin the whole season. Paying a couple of millions and jailing the responsible members is more than enough i think

[siskue2005]

I think we should wait and see. If other Mclaren members knew about those documents, then Mclaren is guilty, no doubt. However, i still believe that deducting points, or even excluding Mclaren from the championship, is a little too harsh; not to forget that it would ruin the whole season. Paying a couple of millions and jailing the responsible members is more than enough i think

if that happens...then all teams with big budget will start to do such stuffs!
And they will do it without any fear.........as they know u can blame some useless fellow and get away with just a fine

[allan]

if that happens...then all teams with big budget will start to do such stuffs!
And they will do it without any fear.........as they know u can blame some useless fellow and get away with just a fine

Head of designers is now useless? Dude wake up! Nobody would sacrifice millions of dollars for any reason. Do u really want them to be excluded from the championship? That would automatically make Ferrari champions, and in that way, i think it's a SHAME for Ferrari aswell as Mclaren !

[hatchet man]

I have to agree with Torso in that if McLaren used the data, it was to gain knowledge of the Ferrari for protests or gain an advantage in being able to predict what Ferrari would do during a race. Since Sawtooth-spike pointed out that the cars do take a long time to design, there would be no performance advantage for McLaren.

Torso:

They where probably looking for any illegalities on the Ferrari rather than to copy elements of the Ferrari car.

Sawtooth-spike:

The cars are nothing alike, they are build in totaly differant ways to achive the same thing.

also as i think has been said befor, these document only turned up a few months ago. and F1 cars are designed like a year befor they race.

If McLaren are found guilty, exclusion from the championship would be detrimental to the sport and as much as I want Kimi to win the championship, the contest should be decided on the track, not in the courts.

However, IF they are found to have cheated, then some sort of penalty should be imposed, be it a one race suspension or rather large fine.

Honda were suspended from several races because their car had the potential to run underweight (fuel tank design), and quite frankly, I believe that espionage is a more serious crime. Having intimate knowledge of another team's car is not something you can just erase or replace with another part.

I will be seriously disappointed if any persons found guilty in this drama find their way back to F1.

[siskue2005]

if that happens...then all teams with big budget will start to do such stuffs!
And they will do it without any fear.........as they know u can blame some useless fellow and get away with just a fine

Head of designers is now useless? Dude wake up! Nobody would sacrifice millions of dollars for any reason. Do u really want them to be excluded from the championship? That would automatically make Ferrari champions, and in that way, i think it's a SHAME for Ferrari aswell as Mclaren !

I was talking about any other team , trying to repeat this....and just get away with a fine (maybe 10million dollors ....where as even spyker spend 150 million dollors a year)!!

its not shame for Ferrari..its not their fault.....If Mclaren have gained advantage.....then the WDC is close just coz of CHEATING!
do u want to see a fake championship????

And if they have not cheated,.....it would have been just ferrari winning!

I would rather prefer a championship with some integrity......Not a fake one!

[West]

Jeez... not this "fake" championship sh*t again... if you want to discuss "fake" championships, the Hill vs. Schumacher incident in Adelaide '94 is still pretty open for interpretation...

You should just say "I want Ferrari to win" even though most people will say that they are behind at the moment. Your posts imply that you want them to be at the front in any way possible. And it would be a shame for Ferrari to win "this way," because if everybody wants to see Ferrari win, it's because they've put together a superior team, not through a technicality.

Only Coughlan knows what's going on and until we have a settlement on this dispute, everything is just hearsay.

[siskue2005]

thats why i said......."IF" they have cheated.....
God some people just jump into everything

I never sound like i want ferrari to win any way possible!

but again IF Mclaren cheated they dont deserve this years championship!!!!

[Spencifer_Murphy]

The idea that Mclaren should be docked points for this is ludacrous. Siskue2005 pointed out that if they were not docked points then other teams would do such things.

Well I'm sorry but its already happening, and it has been for a long time. Remember how teams used to go to such extreme lengths to prevent even the most simple of espionage by covering their car's rear wings in the garages?

At the end of the day this is just another bit of day-to-day F1...the only thing about this that is out of the ordinary is that actual documents have changed hands (breech of copyright etc?) and (probably the most prolific in this case) it also involves two of F1's biggest names. Stepney & Coughlan.

[waynes]

if you want to discuss "fake" championships, the Hill vs. Schumacher incident in Adelaide '94 is still pretty open for interpretation...

how was that fake? the benetton team broke rules on a number of occasions and paid the price

while schumacher was rightly suspended, the williams team made hay

schumacher cheated in the final race as everyone knows

simple as that

using another teams information is a whole different ballgame

[allan]

Jeez... not this "fake" championship sh*t again... if you want to discuss "fake" championships, the Hill vs. Schumacher incident in Adelaide '94 is still pretty open for interpretation...

Now that is pathetic defence

[Principessa]

http://www.f1technical.net/news/6469

Another McLaren statement

[wazojugs]

In my eyes both Mclaren and Ferrari are just as much to blame as each other.

If Mclaren should have known that one of there employees has a 780 page dossier then Ferrari should have know that one of there employies was photocopying a 780 page dossier!

If this photo-copy shop was in Maranello, can you imagine the guy ringing up Ron Dennis and saying "Ferrari have got your plans, this is not correct." No, they just smile the big smile.

Its not as if the Mclaren guy has skulked into the marenallo HQ at night with a diamond cutter and some lengths of rope like the pink panther and spent all night copying files onthe cars, left a calling card and left no trace.

They should dock both teams there points in the WDC and contructors and made to start from zero from now. Then Renault can surpass BMW and win 3 years in a row

[West]

if you want to discuss "fake" championships, the Hill vs. Schumacher incident in Adelaide '94 is still pretty open for interpretation...

schumacher cheated in the final race as everyone knows

That's what I was referring to... there are still people out there who say Schumacher did or didn't deserve it just because of once incident that was actually seen on TV, rather than design of the car.

I just don't see anything "fake" or debatable about this year's championship at the moment. It's hard to believe McLaren using Ferrari information to beat them... isn't Ron Dennis and co. too proud to do do that?

[Rob W]

People are getting away from the important point at hand here I think.

It doesn't matter whether McLaren used any or all of the information Coulghan came into possession of at all - the team is still in breach of the motorsport regulations.

McLaren are only trying to mitigate the punishment they will get by proving they didn't use any of the information on their car. They are still, however, guilty of being in possession of the information. Coughlan has admitted this already and so it is a foregone conclusion.

I also heard another story being bandied about overnight - that Ferrari made it easy for 'whoever' to send the documents to Coulghan so that they could then start this whole mess - waiting a few months before outing Coughlan and getting McLaren punished (with the added bonus of being able to get rid of Stepney by blaming him of the leak). The win on both accounts.

That there has been no established link between Coulghan and Stepney from courier/mail/email records says to me that there might be others involved at Ferrari.

Rob W

[mcdenife]

Rob, I think u are missing the point. Mcl is not in possession, an employee was. Mcl can only be in breach depending how, when and, more importantly, why said employee had the docs. If what has been leaked so far is true (large helping salt required), Mcl do not even have to prove there is nothing from that doc on its cars and have been far more co-orporative than is necessary. by inviting the FIA (unwise in my view) to review/investigate their cars/designs etc.

A parting thought: How would you go about making an employee you want to get rid of, but can afford for him to leave, unemployable in the industry?