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Julian Mayo wrote:

F1greyhound wrote:DMT? Would you enlighten us, Julian? -

DTM, perhaps? Whatever, they will still be too quick for him
(check out the time of the DMT post.)

I realise that i am new around here so please dont be offended, but just to be clear about where ralf may end up:

http://www.motorsport.com/photos/dtm/20 ... p-0295.jpg

Julian Mayo wrote:

JayVee wrote:I see the Alonso bashing continuing

First he is a liar (who didn't lie) and now he is a backstabber and poor Ron is really suffering from this disgusting person.

But by Ron Dennis's standard, what Alonso did was the 'right thing'

This is what Ron Dennis said during this ordeal (defending Stepney's actions):

He acted properly and in the interests of the sport in "blowing the whistle" about this. No team can expect their employees to keep quiet if they suspect - correctly in this case - that their employers are breaching the rules of the sport.

He also said: "It is in the interests of Formula 1 that whistle-blowing is encouraged and not discouraged."

I raise the question again, why wasn't Alonso fired ? Why wasn't de la Rosa fired ? Alonso is still winning and de la Rosa is still testing.
Why didn't McLaren appeal ?

They knew, they all knew what was happening and kept quiet.
And how dare Alonso say anything!

Lets not be sheep and just follow what the British media likes to tell us. We have brains so we can use them to think and make our own judgements.

But putting all this aside, I am amazed, just amazed by this person who has no support from his team yet goes out and finishes the last 3 races on the podium winning one and beating his golden child team-mate at every one of those races.
This guy is something and I am glad to witness what he is going through.
I just hope they don't hurt him cause nothing will stop him from winning his 3rd title in a row now. Not even Ron Dennis

Go Alonso The Cute - May the force be with you

It was the Australian commentators who said there was contact.
I am disgusted at many things in F1, Alonso the man(not the driver) is just one.
I am disgusted that ,
Ferrari will not stop Todt Snr's personal crusade, before he gets the chop when McLaren win the WDC.
Ferrari will not sign a testing agreement.
Mad Max, Flavio and Todt are colluding, to get Renault out of a deeper pile of pooh than McLaren were in,
That drivers, engineers, and other techos, who have huge salary packages, and a life-style that I cannot even begin to imagine have absolutely no sense of loyalty to their teams,
and they and team managers simply don't give a rat's a#%& about the poor bloody fan.

I learned a long time ago not to argue with you as you are very clever at changing the reference points and I simply won't keep chasing. You put your view and I put mine.

Personally I think that of all the team managers Flavio is the most who cares about the fans.

What I am really worried about now is that Alonso The Cute goes to Ferrari. Great news for the Ferrari fans but not for me

I am new to this discussion and do not want to quote any one. However, after all this that had gone through I feel it is the hypocracy of Dennis that is hurting the team more than anything else. He always insists that both drivers are equal in the team and alonso has a problem as he expected to be number one driver. But the fact is that hamilton is Ron's protegee and he always wants him to win. Alonso was there just in case hamilton does not turn out to be as good on his debut.
The spy saga has not proved that mclaren actually used any of ferari's info. Their 2008 car will also be under scruitny to ensure the same. Regarding the info that Mclaren did have is something they could have had through other "legitimate" means anyways. If at all somebody ran an illegal car, then it was ferrari in Australian GP but they got away with it cos they are ferrari and therefore above all rules. massa claims that constructors championship is not devalued. Obviously it is because ferrari is getting it. It only gets devalued when any other team gets it. If formula1 has to become more popular Ferraris bullying has to be checked and all teams be given equal treatment.
Mind you, I am not supporting Mclaren for what they did, I do feel that they deserved the punishment, But giving ferrari all advantages is something I can not approve.

Welcome to the forums Heman.

I hope to remain active now. Interesting place this

That is great to hear. Hope to hear more from you.

Now Stepny says he gave info to Ferrari. Ferrari must now be fined the same & lose their points

Bundy wrote:Now Stepny says he gave info to Ferrari. Ferrari must now be fined the same & lose their points

Bundy wrote:Now Stepny says he gave info to Ferrari. Ferrari must now be fined the same & lose their points

He also said he never gave Coughlin anything.

Seems like a fine upstanding honest member of society now doesn't he

Yeah sure!!!

The McLaren team will have to wait until the 14th of February before knowing if the FIA considers their 2008 car containing any confidential Ferrari information or not and what the penalty maybe (if any).

The World Motor Sport Council released this statement:

In its decision of 13 September 2007, the WMSC instructed the FIA Technical Department to conduct an investigation of the preparatory work by McLaren on its 2008 car to determine whether that car incorporates any confidential Ferrari information. This investigation has been concluded and a detailed report submitted to the WMSC. The WMSC considers that McLaren, Ferrari and the other competitors in the FIA Formula One World Championship should be afforded the opportunity to make considered representations on the report at an extraordinary general meeting of the WMSC to be held on Thursday 14 February 2008 in Paris.

McLaren released the following statement:

McLaren acknowledges the World Motor Sport Council’s announcement to defer its decision regarding the team’s 2008 car to an extraordinary general meeting to be held on Thursday 14th February 2008 in Paris.

From the very beginning McLaren has provided the FIA with full access and complete co-operation, and remains confident no confidential information has been incorporated within the team’s 2007 and 2008 cars.

The McLaren Formula 1 team issued an embarrasing public apology admitting that Ferrari information has been known to more people at McLaren than originally admitted. The statement from McLaren read:

As a result of the investigations carried out by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile it has become clear that Ferrari information was more widely disseminated within McLaren than was previously communicated. McLaren greatly regrets that its own investigations did not identify this material and has written to the World Motor Sport Council to apologise for this.

McLaren has written a letter to the FIA which in the interests of transparency it is publishing with this press statement. That letter speaks for itself and the sentiments expressed in it are sincerely held by McLaren. McLaren has also written to the World Motor Sport Council to apologise that it has taken an FIA investigation to find this information and have expressed our deep regret that our understanding of the facts was improved as a result of the FIA inspection rather than our own investigations. McLaren has recognised that this entire situation could have been avoided if we had informed Ferrari and the FIA about Nigel Stepney's first communication when it came to our attention. We are, of course, embarrassed by the successive disclosures and have apologised unreservedly to the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

To avoid even the possibility of Ferrari information influencing our performance during 2008, McLaren has offered a set of detailed undertakings to the FIA which will impose a moratorium on development in relation to three separate systems. During the course of these incidents, McLaren has conducted a thorough review of its policies and procedures regarding the recruitment and management of staff. The proposals arising from this thorough review have been disclosed to the FIA and McLaren has agreed to demonstrate that all of these policies and procedures have been fully implemented.

McLaren wish to make a public apology to the FIA, Ferrari, the Formula 1 community and to Formula 1 fans throughout the world and offer their assurance that changes are now being made which will ensure that nothing comparable to what has taken place will ever happen again. McLaren have also agreed to pay the costs incurred by the FIA for their investigation.

McLaren now wishes to put these matters behind it and to move forward focusing on the 2008 season.

Here is the letter issued by Martin Whitmarsh

05 December 2007

Dear Mr Mosley and Members of the World Motor Sport Council,

We have very recently received a copy of the report by the FIA Technical Department, to the World Motor Sport Council pursuant to its 13th September 2007 decision. In the light of this report and its conclusions we felt that it was appropriate to write directly to you to express our sincere regret in regard to some of the matters that had been brought to light.

Whilst with great respect to the authors of the report, we do not agree with all of the conclusions that have been drawn following this most impressively thorough and daunting investigation into the engineering processes of McLaren Racing, we accept the central conclusion that some pieces of Ferrari information may have been disclosed via Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan, directly or indirectly to individuals within McLaren other than Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso.

It is a matter of deep regret for us that our understanding of the facts has improved as a result of the FIA inspection rather than our own prior investigations. We apologise unreservedly if our prior ignorance of some of these facts has misled the World Motor Sport Council and we can only assure you all that this was never our intention.

We must nonetheless accept that our own investigations into this matter were insufficient, although we would ask you to have regard to the fact that such investigations were conducted during a highly intense racing season and under significant time pressure. As a result, our investigations focused most strongly on satisfying ourselves that no Ferrari confidential information had been used directly or indirectly on the 2007 and 2008 cars.

The FIA investigation was extremely exhaustive, comprehensive and we trust that it is apparent, as is acknowledged in the report, that McLaren co-operated fully and speedily with all requests made by the investigating team. We also believe that the investigators found no evidence of concealment or data cleansing as they reviewed the comprehensive materials supplied.

To put this investigation into context, the investigating team interviewed 20 key engineers, accessed 22 personal computers belonging to key members of the organisation and retrieved by computer search 1.4 Tera Bytes of data stored on the central computer systems of McLaren Racing (this latter data is equivalent to approximately 75 million sheets of A4 typed information).

We would respectfully suggest, however, that despite our embarrassment that pieces of Ferrari information may have penetrated our organisation beyond our previous belief, the inspection has not reached any conclusion that McLaren used Ferrari confidential information on the 2007 or 2008 car (subject to issues as to the deployment quickshift, fast fill or CO2 as a tyre gas for 2008, in respect of which see below).

We do, however, accept that the inspection provides some support for the conclusion that is set out in paragraph 8.11 of the WMSC's decision of 13 September 2007. In particular that "a number of McLaren employees... were in unauthorised possession of ... Ferrari technical information" for which we have been most severely punished. However, it does not establish that the information in question was used on the 2007 or 2008 cars.

We understand that the World Motor Sport Council does not have time to receive a full hearing in regard to this matter during its meeting on 7th December. However, we are aware that the Council will make a procedural decision to determine how this matter is now addressed and taken forward.

In this regard, we can only seek to provide the Council with the briefest understanding of the impact of this matter upon our team and respectfully request that the Council appreciates these facts and determines a process which is proportionate to the seriousness of the case, taking into account the penalties that have already been inflicted upon the team.

We respectfully request that the members of the Council consider the significant disruption that has occurred within the team as a consequence of this matter. Whilst McLaren has a strong partnership with Mercedes-Benz, which supplies its engines, it is still an independent team which is responsible for the generation of the majority of its own budget for the design and development of the chassis and the subsequent operation of the cars.

Therefore, apart from the morale sapping consequence within the team, its ability to continue its task of generating investment has, as I am sure anyone can imagine, been made virtually impossible.

Consequently, the long term damage to the team's previously outstanding record and commercial capability is significantly greater than that potentially envisaged by the fiscal penalty that was previously imposed upon the team.

We would respectfully ask that in the light of this and the fact that it is reasonable to assume now that all of the damaging facts have been presented, that it may be appropriate and also incidentally in the interests of Formula One generally, to bring an urgent conclusion to this affair.

Toward that end we would like to express our willingness, despite not agreeing with the findings, to enter into discussion with the FIA Technical Department as to a moratorium of an appropriate length in respect of the use of quickshift, fast fill or CO2 as a tyre gas.

We trust that the seriousness with which we regard this matter is apparent from this letter and that it gives you confidence that we will do everything in our power to avoid any repetition of these events. We have reflected on these matters carefully and critically and in particular on the comments made by the FIA President, Max Mosley, to the effect that had we contacted Jean Todt as soon as we were aware of the "whistleblowing" information coming from Stepney these matters could all have been avoided.

Moving forward, we would like to reassure the Council that we have put in place procedures to prevent further recurrences of such conduct and would like to offer to the FIA if this of interest to open a dialogue whereby McLaren would make every effort to try and improve its relationship with the FIA.

We apologise wholeheartedly once more that it has taken the intervention of the FIA and a time consuming process to expose all of the facts emanating from this matter, but we hope that when the Council members have had time to consider the circumstances surrounding this case and the pressures that have been placed upon McLaren during our investigations, that our lapses in this respect are at least partially excusable.

We remain at your convenience if we can further assist your deliberations in respect of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Martin Whitmarsh
Chief Operating Officer, McLaren Group

The FIA then issued this statement:

MCLAREN APOLOGY AND UNDERTAKINGS - 13.12.2007

In the light of McLaren's public apology and undertakings, the FIA President has asked the members of the World Motor Sport Council for their consent to cancel the hearing scheduled for 14 February 2008 and, in the interests of the sport, to consider this matter closed.

In the interests of transparency a redacted copy of the Report by the FIA Technical Department to the World Motor Sport Council is attached to this press statement.

Report by the FIA Technical Department to the World Motor Sport Council