An interesting McLaren press release:

http://www.mclaren.com/latestn ... eases-2007.php?article=60


Here's a brief translation:

Ferrari parts are on our cars, we didn't find them but the FIA did, we're sorry because we didn't find them but we didn't look well enough, we could have avoided all of this if we didn't turn a blind eye when we first saw Stepney communications, we have been caught red-handed and feel utterly ashamed that these discoveries shows clearly we copied Ferrari parts (but remember, we didn't look well enough!).

Since we've been caught red-handed we won't develop three separate systems which undoubtedly have been "inspired" by Ferrari, we will pay more attention to the people we hire and we'll be under scrutiny.

To the entire world: we're sorry, we know it sounds like we did it on purpose, but we were just careless. We'll pay for the costs of the investigation, too.

Let's forget about all the fights we had in and out of the track to put our fingers on the championship and have a drink, pals! We're sorry, after all...



Edit:

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/he ... detail/071213195034.shtml

News in F1-live, with links to redacted fia report. Fairly interesting in some parts.

That's a 'sorry, but we didn't do anything wrong' apology. Complete BS if you ask me..

very very very strange. makes me wonder things like, by freezing development on 3 systems that might have included ferrari technology, are they trying to draw attention away from a 4th stolen system?

(not that i'm cynical or anything)

Yeah, even the letter to the Fia council is somewhat irritating.

Edit: the story gets more interesting. McLaren wants closure because they're heavily under scrutiny. Old news (8 Dec), but somewhat related:

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/mo ... /story/0,,2224382,00.html


Anyway we finally know McLaren really copied Ferrari parts. Case closed but more investigations pending, it seems. And, if you really asks me, there's more than a reason to be angry at McLaren for the way they behaved. Now they are aware more people were involved because FIA told them. They even had the courage to try to get their hands on Raikkonen's title after they screwed the last races bigtime... sorry if I sound harsh, but I hope you understand. In other words they blatantly lied on almost every account but they didn't know... How can you know, then, if they're lying or not now?

Now the FIA dropped it's investigation because Mclaren apologised. Really strange.

Basically Mclaren admits to be still using stolen idea's, and ask for a possible freeze on them. (F1-live listed the 3 systems; CO-gas for the tires ; brakesystems and wheelbase ; but has now allready removed that part. )
Which to me sounds like they are begging to be able to use them or they would drop back to their 2006 performance level (or near to it), which ofcourse wouldn't suit wonderboy hamilton at all (nor the hami fanboys and Mc sponsors)

Next thing we know the WMSC drops it's investigation (on request of Max) and basically gives Mc the all clear.
They even have the nerve to call it "in the interests of the sport" and "In the interests of transparency"

I'm sorry but do you guys really think that Mclaren would do such a thing? , jeopardise their team image? I think a ton of sponsors would turn them down if they just blatently admit that they copied parts. Besides, "we didn't find them but the FIA did, we're sorry because we didn't find them but we didn't look well enough", I mean, come on! they didn't find them? they're not stupid.

Just read what McLaren wrote:

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.

And the report too, it's interesting. They just reviewed ten issues Ferrari considered 'ground-breaking'. There was widespread knowledge inside McLaren of three of them. This knowledge came from a 'mole', Stepney. They tested and used that undue knowledge to try to obtain an advantage. For me, this is copying.

On top of that, the apologies are repeated and widely addressed. Time to eat some humble pie, and try to stop the ongoing horror of the investigations...

Did u read the official press releases about it?

-Senior engineers who 'completely forget how they got the information' ..yep total, but still selective, amnesia is normall among intelligent people under 60 years old.
-Against all mclaren history and procedures an adaptive and cornerspecific brakesystem is developed and tested within a month of finding out the ferrari secrets.(with no evidence at all on their computers that they were working on it beforehand)
But ofcourse they just stumbled on it by chance and it has nothing to do with the knowledge they gained from ferrari.
-claims of knowing about a certain system since 2000-2001,but not using it for some odd reason till a month after the ferrari leak started in 2007 (With contradicting statements added ,one guy saying it was known since 2001. The other guy claiming they discovered it early in 2007,but even if its right after the leak..it has nothing to do with it and was purely developed inhouse.)
-FIA concluding most investigated parts cannot be proven to be stolen, but noting serious concern about the use of 3 systems in the 2008 design...and mclaren immediately asking a freeze on these 3systems so they can use them in 2008 without incurring a penalty.


Just a few of the most obvious parts...read the FIA report and then the mclaren report to see the others for yourselves.
It is like a bankrobber being followed to his house and the police finding huge amounts of numbered banknotes there..but the court decides it cannot be proven that those notes are from the robbery, even if all evidence states that the robber was dead poor and couldn't even afford to take the bus prior to said robbery.


I dont care if Mclaren stole a whole ferrari and painted it grey, claiming it is their car/design.
What I dont like is the blatant lies and coverup by the FIA all "in the interests of the sport"..would F1 really die if Mclaren fell back to 4th spot in 2008 and renault, BMW and ferrari finish in front of them for a few years? I don't think so, so why then is the FIA dropping it's case and forgetting it's own concerns about certain systems/idea's Mclaren is using in it's 2008 design?

(note that for now only F1-live reports about the FIA closing the investigation...but i see no reason for them to make it up)

edit : adressed to Leprekaun ofcourse

Really interesting post... seems just another way to defend themselfs. First "we havent copied Ferrari" then as found guilty "we arent bad guys anymore".
Well they are still McLaren so i dont see too much sponsors flee (expecially as they have Hamilton... and they dont have Alonso anymore ).
Bah i hope that the removal of tc is just a start to less technology in F1 so teams will try to actually sign good pilots and not good engineers...


Edit:- Uh... by the way i never heard WHY Stepney did it... did he said why?

I'm also astonished by this:

McLaren have also agreed to pay the costs incurred by the FIA for their investigation.

McLaren agrees to pay for the results of a damning report... quite revealing.

(biel avatar, Ruben)

McLaren cheats, Ferarri cheats, Renault cheats, the FIA is corrupt as hell, the WMSC majority shareholder is Ferarri.. who's worse than who? It's a dirty filthy business, but someone's got to put a middle finger up at it. So on behalf of all the people out there, who wish there were even just a tiny bit of integrity left in this miserably bitter and vindictive motorsport, I say: "up yours F1, go die."

I don't know who's worse than who, I don't claim I know. I don't consider F1 'likeable' overall, just as I consider soccer 'unlikeable', but I find those sports rather attractive (although not at a maniacal or paranoid stage). I know they are far from my ideal. I already know I won't find any white knight there.

But I won't say "up yours F1, go die.". You know, this parade is somewhat funny. In Italy we say The problem is severe, but it isn't serious. A bit of irony helps.

I'm sad because the more I watch and enjoy the sport, the more I also learn about the sport's internal politics.. and so I find myself witnessing something that seems irresistibly drawn to tear itself apart from within, and it's sad. It's like a thing of beauty from afar.. but get close and you can smell that it's just a rotting corpse. It's sad.

Quote from SamH :

I'm sad because the more I watch and enjoy the sport, the more I also learn about the sport's internal politics.. and so I find myself witnessing something that seems irresistibly drawn to tear itself apart from within, and it's sad. It's like a thing of beauty from afar.. but get close and you can smell that it's just a rotting corpse. It's sad.

Yeah I definitely see what you mean. I've been watching since Melbourne 1996 and this deterioration is saddening.

On the other hand, at least the races themselves are pretty good. The 2007 championship was fantasic despite all the politics surrounding it. Once the lights go out, all that stuff seems to fall away and it's about racing.

This Mclaren aplology is pretty worrying though. I wouldn't be surprised if the FIA barred them from competition this year. Now that would throw a wrench in the works as far as which drivers will be at which team. Hamilton is good enough to push someone else out of a seat despite contracts. The question is, where would he go?

Well hopefully this is an end of all this spying nonsense, the FIA seem to accept that Mclaren won't be using the parts next season. I was hoping that if they did find anything they would simply make sure it wasn't used, rather than ban Mclaren from the 2008 championship. Unless the FIA are saving that for their christmas special, just like all good soaps do.

sound to me the FIA said...

"release this, and we won't hassle you in February"

F1 is a great sport,but how they do things in it,it was always nasty to me

Quote from SamH :

McLaren cheats, Ferarri cheats, Renault cheats, the FIA is corrupt as hell, the WMSC majority shareholder is Ferarri.. who's worse than who? It's a dirty filthy business, but someone's got to put a middle finger up at it. So on behalf of all the people out there, who wish there were even just a tiny bit of integrity left in this miserably bitter and vindictive motorsport, I say: "up yours F1, go die."

Exactly my thoughts.

I'll stick to Touring Cars.

obviously FIA and McLaren has some sort of discussions going on, probably something along the line of:
We're totally stuffed by everyone on earth after the penalty, or rather the lack of it, for the Renault spying case. So we would like to close all the spying cases down if you can offer to the world some sort of apologies, then we can move on and enjoy a nice Christmas and New Year with nothing to worry about...

Once again: Renault case is different, and McLaren even issued inaccurate information in a briefing, and a subsequent press release to rectify the information wrongly offered during the briefing.

What McLaren says is "we've had the most harsh punishment for what we did", but they don't go as far as saying that the punishment was undeserved. They're in damage control mode because they realise that it could be much worse because the findings warrant more thorough searches, and not only on those ten ground-breaking issues, but on the whole car, with huge costs, delays and risks.

So, all in all, I'd consider this a not so generous offer from McLaren to FIA after they read the report and concluded more hassle was on the way, and rightly so.

To each his own conclusion. Mine is quite clear. I trusted McLaren as a fair competitor to the championship, but if I'd see them booted from the next one I wouldn't be surprised. They've done everything they could to reach that result while mantaining their integrity was adamant. 3rd July: McLaren acknowledges the flow of information from Ferrari. 4th July: McLaren McLaren has completed a thorough investigation and can confirm that no Ferrari intellectual property has been passed to any other members of the team or incorporated into its cars.

More or less a day... how thorough could that be? And in the light of all the apologies and clarifications, is it so hard to accept that McLaren blatantly and repeatedly lied? Press releases from McLaren are pretty clear about their strategies: we're not guilty or if we were we didn't know, other people are but we have to rectify the numbers we gave on Renault because we exaggerated them, at least let's share the blame, no, wait, let's end up all of this... All of this sucks, including strategy changes to limit damage. It's not what I'd expect from honest men. I won't buy their sorrow or their apologies, because they suck too, since those apologies and sorrow just depend on McLaren's worries. Pretty lame, if you ask me, and undefensible from every point of view.

What would have happened if FIA decided to ban McClaren from season 2008?

Severe drop in ratings -> less moneys -> no more cashola for Bernie.

So ofcourse they will let McClaren in on the 2008 season.

Exatly same thing as the case about Renault spying on McClaren. If FIA had put a 100mill penalty on Renault, as it should have done to be fair, it would have gone bust. No more Renault on season 2008.

Again dropped ratings etc.

The whole F1 is a political crappy sport that has almost nothing to do with racing.

Remember a few years back when the car manufacturers were thinking of putting up a formula series of their own? This was a time when Ferrari totally dominated the scene and many people criticised this. Ferrari bugged out because it made a seperate deal with bernie for some money. Next season Ferrari was strugling to keep up with the other top teams. Top team to middle class in one jump. Or did they lose on purpose to get the ratings up?

Don't know, don't care. F1 is crap nowadays.
I grant that the championship was close, but every single race was boring as hell.

F1 may be crap, but let me have some fun at McLaren apologists who got sued by FIA and, subsequently, having read the documents, say it's time to move on and stop bickering... such as Martin Brundle on Times. As for the others, silence speaks for itself.

Personally I would have never sided with Ferrari, but given the amount of abuse Ferrari fans have been subjected to as supporters of a dishonest team (read past comments everywhere you like to confirm this) I am satisfied with this unusual level of silence from former vocal protesters. Some of them will still go on talking about double standards and subtle interpretations (while completely missing McLaren's double standard and subtle interpretations, and being now completely unable to oppose McLaren supposed total integrity to the 'mafia'...). Their call and they have a right to do so, but I bet there are less and less people willing to listen.

I'm open to developments although as of now I'm completely satisfied, on and off the track. If there will be something of interest, I'll change my point of view. As of now I'm able to stand by the ideas I had right from the start.

Edit: as an indicator of a further level of embarassment, you can notice that the only piece of motorsports news in Time's sports homepage is "It’s Scalextric with knobs on". Dig further in the Formula 1 section and you'll have Brundle's commentary after reading the report: that sounds like "I'll eat some crow but...", and you have Gorman's commentary asking for Ron Dennis' head. Expect more reverse gearing from betrayed supportive journalists soon, with variable levels of hypocrisy.

Have as much fun as you can.

Just voiced my oppinion of F1 in general.