Espionage at Ferrari and McLaren

[modbaraban]

How come Ferrari employees are individual persons, while McLaren employees represent the team?

It's hard to believe that an employee would intentionnaly harm his own team while following the orders of his bosses.

[manchild]

How come Ferrari employees are individual persons, while McLaren employees represent the team?

It's hard to believe that an employee would intentionnaly harm his own team while following the orders of his bosses.

It's hard to believe that Ferrari is innocent and Mclaren guilty.

[checkered]

This is how people go off on tangents like this. De La Rosa and Alonso did not have knowledge as claimed. The journalist who said so has admitted he made the story up.

Rob W

The FIA requesting the

drivers' participation by submitting any relevant communications, especially by email, is well documented. Alonso has also concluded to the media in no uncertain terms that he has delivered something to the FIA in response. We can only surmise the content is at least partly comprised of material specified in the request, otherwise there would've been no sense in him answering within the confines of "professionalism" as he termed it.

I'm surprised that he volunteered any information at all so quickly. Had I received such an FIA communication personally, I would've first asked for a clarification on the terms of the proposed exchange. The wording in the Mosley letter as far as the immunity promise goes, without specific knowledge of Mosley's capacity in forwarding such assurances at least, looks less than water proof to me. Who Alonso should've/has possibly consulted of course must depend on the content of his response.

I haven't actually read the article that "documented" the ficticious content of the email exchange between Alonso and de la Rosa, I didn't feel it was credible such info had surfaced anyway. From what I can tell from second- and thirdhand reporting of the article it's interesting that the journalist's speculations had Alonso "not believing" that de la Rosa had received actual Ferrari set up data i.e. not implicating Fernando in the case in any significant capacity.

That wouldn't serve Ferrari's alledged purpose (through erroneous or biased reporting, for example) of tying in as many important McLaren people in the case as possible.

Edit: Hamilton, on the other hand hasn't publicly declared whether he, as one of the recipients of the Mosley letter, has delivered anything to the FIA. I wonder if it's significant, though, that soon after undisputable reports of Alonso and de la Rosa furnishing the FIA with information of unspecified nature surfaced, he made a point of publicly lamenting the potential ramifications of the "spy case" to himself and his team.

Edit, vol.2: And then there's Flavio, who for some reason has now felt it necessary to state that after attending WMSC hearings and such, Renault ... erm, (cough, shifting of feet) ... isn't "involved" (link) in the unfortunately named "spy case" after all.

[modbaraban]

How come Ferrari employees are individual persons, while McLaren employees represent the team?

It's hard to believe that an employee would intentionnaly harm his own team while following the orders of his bosses.

It's hard to believe that Ferrari is innocent and Mclaren guilty.

It's not that black&white, manchild. Looks like McLaren got themselves in deep **it and Ferrari will make sure they drawn in it as deep as possible.

[allan]

Manchild, i do agree with u that ferrari, and Tod, are acting really stupid in terms of dealing with this whole case...
However, it's Mclaren who drove themselves into this ..it, as modbarban has said already... And what made things even worse is that they tried to cover, or at least that's what the media has been talking about for the last couple of days...

[manchild]

http://www.f1technical.net/news/7045

It seems some of the most powerful people in F1 are more aligned to Ferrari than anybody else. The FIA have historically been very close to Ferrari, closer to them than anyone else. There are more Ferrari representatives on the World Council than anybody else.

[FLC]

New tactics by Mclaren or is there really something in this

FIA: McLaren have queried Renault

We told the FIA what we had, so there's no problem. I don't know what Dennis refers to, he's throwing stones a bit everywhere. We are calm, no problem at all.

EDIT: Sorry, checkered, I just saw you linked to the same article, they published it under 2 different headlines.

[modbaraban]

After reading the last statement by Montezemolo, I have to admit that I overestimated their understanding F1

EDIT: I meant this

[Rob W]

Now we have Paul Stoddart's (very long) opinion on this and his views on Max Mosely.

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=32733


Rob W

[Tom]

Not sure what to make of that view.

Here's Ferrari's stance...http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=32732
and naturally they won't give up till they get their way. I see this lasting till well into 08.
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=32720

[allan]

i dont know whats going on now really... Im completely lost!
Now, what does renault has to do with this whole thing? Apparently mclaren has some info that would exclude Renault from the championship "Immediately"!!!
Ron is acting as if he was struck by a stick on the head, passed out, then woke up again and hit the first guy he saw! (In this case it was Flavio:D).

[manchild]

After reading the last statement by Montezemolo, I have to admit that I overestimated their understanding F1

I've been telling for years that he is one of the four riders of F1 apocalypse together with Schumacher, Todt and Brown. I'm not surprised at all. Sieg Über Alles! Mosley, Mussolini... it all fits. Essentially, it is known that such psychological problem emerges from extensive sexual incapability and therefore frustration (probably goes for all four). All power junkies in history had it...

Stoddy said it all, make sure you read article Rob W linked

[wunderkind]

i dont know whats going on now really... Im completely lost!
Now, what does renault has to do with this whole thing? Apparently mclaren has some info that would exclude Renault from the championship "Immediately"!!!
Ron is acting as if he was struck by a stick on the head, passed out, then woke up again and hit the first guy he saw! (In this case it was Flavio:D).

Nah mate, Ron Dennis is doing two things by dragging Flavio Briatore into this.

Ron Dennis must have some dirt he and his lawyers know would stick to Renault if they decide to pursue it in courts or the FIA.

1) Ron Dennis wants Flavio Briatore to stop making overtures to Fernando Alonso to lure him back to Renault for 2008 or 2009. All the uncertainty must be having an effect on the team and McLaren's Spanish sponsors.

2) Flavio Briatore has publically sided with Jean Todt and Ferrari on this Spygate matter and Ron is serving Flavio a hot cup of "Sit Back and Shut the Fuxk Up!". Ron knows Renault would not want to be dragged into this and Renault's senior management would now tell Flavio to keep quiet and stop playing the "Best Supporting Actor Role" to Jean Todt.

McLaren and Mercedes Benz also has a last resort nuclear option up their sleeve.

If found guilty, they could withdraw their participation from the 2008 season and also withdraw their offer to supply cars to the Prodrive team. If this does happen, Bernie Ecclestone's grand plan of customer car teams will be in tatters. BMW has already said they are focused on winning and have no spare capacity to service a works team and Prodrive would not want to run a Toyota or a Renault............

Bernie could face not insubstantial financial losses due to the absence of McLaren and the loss of one or more teams (Prodrive and the struggling Super Aguri team) that banked on running a customer chassis. F1 without McLaren is like the Premier League without Man Utd. No one's gonna watch it.

[doorboot]

I agree with wunderkind, but would also like to add that RD's motive might include that if the FIA ban McLaren then, hypotheticaly, they should ban Renault. If that happens then F1 will go to the dogs. The FIA may think they can survive without McLaren but there is no way that they can survice without McLaren and Renault. This is a clasical case of brinkmanship alla cold war style.

[Rob W]

The FIA requesting the drivers' participation by submitting any relevant communications, especially by email, is well documented. Alonso has also concluded to the media in no uncertain terms that he has delivered something to the FIA in response. We can only surmise the content is at least partly comprised of material specified in the request,

I disagree. Alonso's English is misleading at the best of times. The words he said don't imply what you've surmised. I think that in assuming his comments to the media (for the first time ever) were spoken in perfect English you've gone down a line of thinking which more than likely has no merit whatsoever.

From his exact quote and having heard him speak before I think he's said that he cooperated with the FIA and answered their questions. This implies nothing to me at this stage.

Ron Dennis wants Flavio Briatore to stop making overtures to Fernando Alonso to lure him back to Renault for 2008 or 2009. All the uncertainty must be having an effect on the team and McLaren's Spanish sponsors.

The likelihood of this being true is near on zero. Why? Because McLaren have a multi-year contract with Alonso. Even if he wanted to leave, it is not possible without McLaren agreeing to it.

As far as sponsors are concerned I really don't think a large organisation would jump to too many conclusions just yet. They're smart enough to wait for the outcome before making their mind up.

Rob W