Ferrari would have been penalised by the FIA had they been in McLaren's situation, according to the Italian squad's boss Jean Todt.
The sport's governing body on Thursday found McLaren guilty of being in possession of confidential documents belonging to Ferrari.
The FIA said, however, that there was insufficient evidence that they had gained any benefit from it and so decided not to penalise McLaren.

Todt believes that if the situation had been reversed, Ferrari would have been heavily penalised.
"I wonder what would have happened with the roles reversed," Todt told Corriere della Sera in an interview. "I wonder if they had found in the house of a Ferrari chief designer 780 secret papers, 780 classified documents of another team...
"There would have been cries of a scandal, an exemplary punishment would have been demanded. And it would have been granted, I have no doubt.
"There is not even a sign of logic in this verdict. Either they are guilty or they aren't. McLaren were found responsible of having violated the regulations of F1, of having behaved in a fraudulent manner, but they haven't been punished.

"That's not all: McLaren during the hearing admitted to have received secret material, and that the knowledge of this operation of espionage arrived at the top level, even to Ron Dennis, and there hasn't been any penalization. It's shameful.
"One thing is certain: we at Ferrari can calmly look at ourselves in the mirror. I think others, since yesterday, can't do the same thing," added the Frenchman.

Todt also said the leaked documents have given McLaren a "huge advantage" in this year's championship.
"From this verdict a strange situation comes up: it's like having played poker against a rival who knows your cards," he added. "The advantage is evident, it's huge, even. Well, it was pretended nothing happened.

"I've been in this world for about 40 years, I've seen all kinds of stuff so I don't get surprised by anything, but this state is really at the limit.
"On the job I always try to control the emotions and the feelings. I must be rigorous first of all with myself and then with my co-workers. Every professional action on our part must be carried out properly. This attitude translates into a precise condition: we must be competitive against our rival.
"We come from a disappointing Grand Prix in Germany, especially as far as technical reliability is concerned, so we must immediately get back on the right track."

The Frenchman added that Ferrari have not yet ruled out appealing the FIA's verdict.
"We'll evaluate what to do and then we'll decide," Todt said.



My own opinion is that perhaps if it happened to any other team then they would have been punished, however Mclaren being perhaps one of the longest surviving and most honest F1 team have earned more respect and trust. Certainly if the roles were reversed Ferrari would have had the book thrown at them, after all they are constantly bending the rules to breaking point. Its funny how a team who was once said to have the FIA in their back pocket is now complaining so much when a decision doesn't go the way they want, that said the case is not closed and more evidence will be gathered.

Ohnoes, looks like they've found something against Honda as well...

Quote from Sniffpetrol.com :

FERRARI WHINES ABOUT HONDA THIS TIME
Sniff, Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 8:30 am

Posted in Motorsport

As McLaren celebrates the FIA’s decision not to issue a penalty for the team’s part in the F1 spying scandal, a new storm was brewing over the sport as Ferrari today issued fresh allegations of copying, this time against Honda.

‘There is growing evidence that Honda Racing’s current championship campaign is not wholly based on original material,’ said a statement from the Italian team. ‘Specifically, that they have been copying the Ferrari seasons 1991, 1992 and 1993’.

‘Honda’s performance this season is too familiar to be mere coincidence,’ said a Maranello insider. ‘The mediocre performance, the patchy reliability, the dispirited drivers, these are all things that have clearly been obtained from Ferrari’s period of being rubbish in the early ‘90s’.

However, Honda was quick to rebuff any allegations of copying. ‘Honda Racing denies any suggestion that it has knowingly copied data or strategy from Ferrari, either current or when they were shit,’ said a spokesman. ‘Throughout the entire F1 spying scandal we have been entirely open and honest about our involvement. Specifically, that our awful season is entirely modelled on the dismal efforts of Footwork during the 1995 championship. We are confident that this will become clear during the forthcoming Hungarian Grand Prix where we have asked Barrichello to get himself run over by the marshalling car’.

I think McLaren should have been punished, there's no way they gained nothing from those documents, even if they have been subtle enough to not just copy Ferrari they can still get a detailed inside understanding of their rival team. The only possible way they wouldn't of gained something is if the documents were taken with the intention of being found and ruin McLaren's season.

I think Ferrari would have been let off just the same, although the FIA would be keen to not be seen returning to its blatantly biased pro-Ferrari antics of a couple of years ago. There's a championship race hotting up with the realities of modern F1 no team will actually let its drivers fight for the title because they usually ends up with some kind of embarrassing scuffle between them, there's actually the chance of a real fight this year with four drivers still in it so the FIA doesn't want to destroy the championship IMO.

Quote from Bean0 :

Ohnoes, looks like they've found something against Honda as well...

ROFL

Oh dear - I agree with Jean Todt, that can't be right...

Did anyone get a picture of him sulking? I love seeing Jean Todt sulking.

Quote from ajp71 :

The only possible way they wouldn't of gained something is if the documents were taken with the intention of being found and ruin McLaren's season.

First of all, it's "wouldn't have gained something"!

Getting back on topic, what do you propose McLaren gained from this? All we know is that the documents were found at Mike Coughlan's house and that his wife photocopied them at a copy shop. Nothing has been said about the documents being made known to McLaren. For all we know, Coughlan might never even have read them. Maybe he sent his missus so that he avoided all contact with the documents?
We know so little about all of this. The FIA received a sworn declaration from Coughlan regarding his acquisition of the documents and heard evidence from McLaren in the session yesterday. They decided that McLaren hadn't gained anything as a result of Mike Coughlan having the documents in his house.
After all this, many people claim that the FIA is biased, that they're not being fair, etc... based on what they've read in the papers. What nonsense!

May I present the 2007 sulking championship...

On a more positive note I think this will make the championship 10 times more interesting, which I think may have played a big part in the FIA's decision...after all support for F1 has been going down until 2006, and this year its gone through the roof with Hamilton and the close fight at the front.


EDIT: Mike told a few people about them, but that was at the most a week or two before it all came out, they all told him to destroy them. Then he was suspended. What Mclaren could gain from that I don't know, but apparently they were tipped off about Ferrari's underfloor antics...which was practically cheating anyway.

Well if he'd somehow ended up with them innocently surely he wouldn't be getting his wife to go and make more copies of them. I think also it's a bit hard to aruge that McLaren's chief deisgner had these for his bed time reading

Well he was told to destroy them by people he informed about it, so I expect he was trying to be a cheating bastard and copy them to disk then destroy the actual papers. There will be a seperate hearing about the people involved, so the individuals could be banned from all motorsport across the world.

EDIT:

But former world champion Jackie Stewart backed McLaren.

"If one individual is operating independently outside his own remit, then it is right that such clandestine behaviour should be punished on an individual basis," he told the Guardian.

Mercedes motorsport head Norbert Haug was unflustered by the possibility of further action.

"As far as the FIA threat is concerned, I'm not worried. We're cleaner than clean," he told German media.

Former Ferrari driver Mika Salo said the scandal was nothing new.

"When I was driving for Ferrari we always spied on McLaren, listening their radio traffic. After every practice session I had in front of me, on paper, all the discussions Mika Hakkinen had had with his engineer," he told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.

Todt and Ferrari really seem to make just about everything that doesn't involve the running cases with the justice departments public. A good thing, because it means we now know McLaren actually put up a friendly face and tried to 'strengthen relations' with Ferrari, while in the possession of their F2007 plans... I've said it before, and I'll say it again here, this is really bad for the sport.

Well what Ferrari have actually done is talk about matters that really should not be made public while an investigation is still on going, they have also been accused of leaking information to the media in the run up to the hearing. If they decided to take this to the court the Mclaren lawyers would destroy them for those reasons. I just wish none of this had happened, its almost ruined a great season.

Frankly, I find it a ton of bullsh*t that Mclaren were declared innocent. I mean, FIA state that because Mclaren don't have a significant advantage over Ferrari and that its all "hunky dory" I mean :wtf2:. Mclaren now know the secrets of the 07 Ferrari and can search for the weak points in the car and then also copy things over to their own Mclaren car. FIA are idiots! simply, IDIOTS!!! :mad:

People need to understand that Mclaren have not gone through these documents page by page holding meetings to discuss how they will use that information...only one person has actually seen the documents, and that person was suspended and is likely to be banned from all forms of motorsport for a very long time. Ferrari are just pissed off because Mclaren were tipped off about the movable floor they were developing by their pal Nigel.

If you get a phone call from an unknown person saying 'oh by the way Ferrari have been developing a potentially illegal part on their car' I think you would be likely to ask the FIA to check if that is the case.

Quote from Leprekaun :

Frankly, I find it a ton of bullsh*t that Mclaren were declared innocent. I mean, FIA state that because Mclaren don't have a significant advantage over Ferrari and that its all "hunky dory" I mean :wtf2:. Mclaren now know the secrets of the 07 Ferrari and can search for the weak points in the car and then also copy things over to their own Mclaren car. FIA are idiots! simply, IDIOTS!!! :mad:

please keep in mind that it was only ONE individual inside the team that have ever seen those documents before u make that comment...

Having not read any of the thread, except some of the first post, I think Ferrari should be punished. Or at least Todt should be fired.

Winey little SOB... he's just as bad as Sebastian Bourdais.

Quote from JCTK :

please keep in mind that it was only ONE individual inside the team that have ever seen those documents before u make that comment...

The one individual happened to be the Chief Designer. Now, I might be a little slow here, but I reckon the Chief Designer might just have a say in what happens with the car design.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

People need to understand that Mclaren have not gone through these documents page by page holding meetings to discuss how they will use that information...only one person has actually seen the documents, and that person was suspended and is likely to be banned from all forms of motorsport for a very long time. Ferrari are just pissed off because Mclaren were tipped off about the movable floor they were developing by their pal Nigel.

If you get a phone call from an unknown person saying 'oh by the way Ferrari have been developing a potentially illegal part on their car' I think you would be likely to ask the FIA to check if that is the case.

Cheating does go on in motorsport, it's a fact of life and TBH I think you'll probably find McLaren have used him as a scape goat then they worked out they'd been caught. Whether or not anybody else had read them at that stage is another matter but the very fact they had them and were trying to make more copies is enough IMO. 780 top secret papers don't just tend to appear on your door step and even if they do if you really want to play it clean you'll burn them, not go and photocopy them, if someone goes through your rubbish removes a bank statement and then starts photocopying it wouldn't you get a tad suspicious?

The other thing people seem to be forgetting is he is McLaren's chief designer and TBH he alone could give the team a substantial advantage just by suddenly getting 'inspired' by Ferrari's design

To be fair, it's not as if the two cars look in any way at all similar is it?

He informed people that he had the documents, but he did not bring them in for show and tell did he? Lets also remember that the earliest date he could of had them was just before the Australian GP, and not long after that he was suspended. Also Todt seems to forget that those people he informed all told him to destroy the documents and to not read them. Now those vague statements, well according to Todt and Ferrari those were triggered by a tip off via e-mail or phone call made by Nigel Stepney, who we now know was a bitter employee who was holding a grudge against Ferrari.

As you know in F1 spying goes on all the time, people move teams and bring information with them in their heads, teams take detailed photographs of each others cars, they attempt to listen in on briefings and radio communications and I expect they get a few tip offs now and then.

I just can't see a team like Mclaren trying to cheat in such an obvious way, they have been in F1 since almost the very start and I doubt they would try to copy another team and risk being kicked out when they already know how to make F1 cars go fast.

We have heard Todts version of events, Ron Dennis and Mclaren have not defended themselfs against those yet. Oh and just for the record I am not a Mclaren fan, they are the most boring team in F1. However your avatar might suggest why your blindly defending Ferrari, since what I posted is true and only one person in the team has actually seen those documents.

QS, what proof do you have that Coughlan didn't show it to his pals over at Mclaren?. The team claims that he was in possession of the documents, so thats a start but then IMO, like all major teams in sports, they just said we didn't see the actual documents but they did. No doubt Dennis' hands were itching for those documents and in one way or another, has kept the documents in some sort of secret Mclaren location (for example, could easily have placed it in any of the 100s of the engineer's homes).

This is why I doubt the teams I like tbh. I never said Ferrari had a clean slate but neither do Mclaren, Renault, Williams. All the top guns did some sort of dirty business all through the years of the sport. I know this is going a bit OT but people say when teams find loopholes in the rules (example: the TC thing in the early '90s) they just take advantage of it behind the FIA's back that its because they have the drive to win, to be the best!. Well, I mean, why can't they prove they're the best in a legal manner? its more rewarding isn't it? its more demoralising for the other teams who may have taken advantage of the loopholes in the rules. Wheres the nobility of winning for God sake!?

Well because Ferrari have leaked information about Coughlans affidavit or talked openly about details of it, in there he explains in full that he told serveral people about it, but did not show them the documents, and that they all told him to destroy them.

An affidavit is a formal sworn statement of fact, signed by the declarant (who is called the affiant or deponent) and witnessed (as to the veracity of the affiant's signature) by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public.
- Wikipedia

Do some research on the story first, Coughlan was ordered to provide that affidavit by the London High Court, his lawyer actually delayed it to make sure its contents could not be used against Coughlan in the Italian court case against Nigel Stepney. So its safe to say that he was honest if his lawyer was scared that it would be self incriminating.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Ferrari would have had the book thrown at them, after all they are constantly bending the rules to breaking point.

All of the top teams bend the rules to breaking point. It has always been this way, even with McLaren. I'm puzzled at the outcome of this trial and I agree with Todt: they were found to have breached the code yet they get no punishment. I expect that the F1 didn't want to throw McLaren out of F1 for a season and a half due to the whole Hamilton phenomenon. F1 is making too much money out of Hamilton right now, they wouldn't want to upset the fans even if serious rule breaches have occurred by McLaren. It smells of Eccelstone.

Surely even a minor punishment would have helped to save credibility, this is a farce.

If the situation was the opposite, the forum would be full of "FIA helps Ferrari" , corrupt FIA, Ferrari FIA, etc theards.

The whole thing was dreamt up to create interest, the scandal began in Bernie Ecclestone's office.

Conspiracy? Nah... Just F1.

To those who say "It was only one person within McLaren, and not the company as a whole" (and this includes Jackie Stewart, who hasn't been right about anything in F1 for 30 years, like his mate Niki Lauda), may I point out the Concorde agreement, which clearly states that the team is represented, not the individual employees. So if one person in a team acts, the whole team is judged to have acted, even if the official (or even genuine) response from the team principles is against such action.

Thus, Mr Couglan (or however you spell his name) acted on McLaren's behalf, whether they knew it or approved of it or not. As they have been found guilty they should be punished, even if it's only a huge fine rather than docking of points. To let them 'get away with it' is tantamount to saying "do what you like, just keep it hidden".

Ferrari, and Todt, are right to be up in arms about this.

But, if the FIA had decided on Ferrari we'd (you'd) all be going "FIA - Ferrari's bitches", so they can't win either way without the world hating them.

Quote from tristancliffe :

To those who say "It was only one person within McLaren, and not the company as a whole" (and this includes Jackie Stewart, who hasn't been right about anything in F1 for 30 years, like his mate Niki Lauda), may I point out the Concorde agreement, which clearly states that the team is represented, not the individual employees. So if one person in a team acts, the whole team is judged to have acted, even if the official (or even genuine) response from the team principles is against such action.

Thus, Mr Couglan (or however you spell his name) acted on McLaren's behalf, whether they knew it or approved of it or not.

By the same logic, was the Ferrari employee who gave Coughlan the documents also acting in behalf of the whole Ferrari team? If so, I don't see what Ferrari are moaning about. They gave the documents to McLaren!