Meh...
The data was aero data, it had nothing to do with reliability. Please reread mr Coughlan statements please.
FIA has keep mum on
- The evidence
- Who spoke to whom
- Basis of their decision
Which is why many teams and old school F1 boss (Peter Sauber, Frank Williams, Jacky Stewart, Stirling Moss) felt that it was absurd.
And a famous quote, to finish first, first you have to finish. The REAL reason that they wanted to have longer lasting engine is for teams to have better reliability, which in turn supposed to cut cost as they don't have to use more engine. But it backfired, badly. nuff said.
The best part of this saga is this. BOTH COUGHLAN AND STEPNEY HAS NOT BEEN CHARGED. I mean, both of them were the real reason that this happened in the first place. IIRC, the WMSC adhered that if an employee is at fault, the team can be charged as well, which what happened to McLaren. Thus in turn, Stepney and Ferrari CAN ALSO BE CHARGED as Ferrari failed to reign in their own worker. It's an open secret that both want to work at Honda. And I don't see any real reason Stepney want to help McLaren as he has nothing to gain. The fact that Ron said the FIA can compare the cars means that he was SURE that McLaren HAD NOT copied from Ferrari.
And was McLaren fast this year? barring 3 circuits that they had an advantage (Monaco, shorter wheelbase, Canada and Italy, better stability under braking), they never looked like they can challenge the Ferraris at other circuits. Ferrari self destructed.
Massa
- Gearbox failure at Aussie GP qualy
- Botched pass damages undertray at Malaysia
- Black Flag at Canada
- Fuel at Hungary qualifying
- Suspension failure at Italy

Kimi
- Leaked radiator means less speed in Malaysia
- DNF in Spain
- DNF in Germany
- Botched qualifying at Monaco
- Damaged wing at Canada after hitting Massa
- damage the car in 3rd free practice in Italy

How many races that McLaren had their cars out of the points this season? 1, when Lewis finished 9th at the euro GP. Compare that to Ferrari
low aero circuit dude. They don't need the horns

if they won the drivers champ, they still retain no 1 and 2 on the car


This post has been edited by linkinstreet: Sep 14 2007, 12:45 PM

dude, IIRC he always qualified for all his races.

He only has 3 DNQ out of 18 starts, which is good really considering that when the 107% ruling was abolished, many was slower

why shouldn't he?
everybody is entitled to his/her own opinion, especially a former team owner and world champ.

Read what I said the previous page. In Coughlan statement, he was only given some snippets of Ferrari aero designs, nothing more and nothing less. AFAIK, AERO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ENGINE RELIABILITY.

Every sport has a degree of skulduggery especially at this level, F1 is no exception. For a start it is inconceivable that exchange of high-level personnel between teams does not involve some transfer of knowledge, however any advantage is likely to be short lived when you look at the pace of change within F1. When did the FIA demand to look at a team's car following a change of chief designer?

If they (FIA) are so concerned about the use of 'stolen' data why don't they contact every employee in the F1 business and ask about knowledge of such things. I suspect that once received this information would either clear the pits of every team or show that this has been a total overreaction.

Cheats should be punished and excluded so that, if nothing else, there is a deterrent to future transgressors, but the punishment must be even and consistent. As has been said before, why have other instances where information has been 'stolen' from Ferrari been ignored by the FIA? because it was a team that was no threat to Ferrari? If McLaren is responsible for an illegal act by one or more of their employees why wasn't Ferrari responsible for the illegal act of their employee (Stepney)?

There seems to be a fair amount of lack of evenness and consistency with this decision that has and will continue to have a derisory effect on F1. I think McLaren should take it to the civil courts where there is a chance the evidence would be looked at in a more even manor, after all $1000000 buy's a lot of court time.

furthermore, F1 moves at a so rapid pace that any information you get will only be good for a limited timeframe. On averange that information is valid for 4 weeks for a good team, but for teams like McLaren on Ferrari, even 2 weeks can make the information redundant already as they keep upgrading their cars, thus it's hard to see really what "real" advantages they have with that information.

This post has been edited by linkinstreet: Sep 14 2007, 04:13 PM

lol at Super Aguri and Torro Rosso then.

considering that they will also supply Prodrive the same car next season, that's why I said Supa Aguri and Torro Rosso will laugh at this.

depends on how you see it. Like I said, F1 move at a bizzare pace right now. From what we can be certain, the info that Coughlan had were relevent untill the next update that Ferrari makes, which IIRC, he did not have info on.
Was the information he received relevant to the car? we will never know as during that time (Australia - > Spain) McLaren was slower than the Ferraris. Malaysia can be seen as a fluke of sort. The time that they had a pure advantage (Monaco) it was expected because of their wheelbase design, which I might add, was designed last season.
And while that said in part of McLaren, what about Ferrari. Till this day, I'm still waiting to see who was the "alert" guy that phoned Ferrari saying that he saw the dossier being copied. I mean, c'mon, he should be the main witness, yet we never saw or heard of him during the two trials. Heck, if I were him, I knew I'd be paid big bucks from papers who wants my story. No way I'd keep mum after that.
Last season Toyota received information from 2 former Ferrari employers, and while they were charged, why not Toyota? and why not Stepney, the man that started all this?
And from what Ron Dennis said, Fernando and Pedro testified denying any knowledge about the Ferrari dossier or design, or anything that might have helped them.
yes, he might say that McLaren ran a car similar to a horse being doped. But the real question is, how many is not doped? Nearly all the teams does espionage, and I'd bet that many of the teams steals from their rivals one way from another, just that Stepney and Coughlan got caight.

Drivers driving their heart out and sacrificing their limbs to entertain. Nothing more and nothing less. Which is why I feel that winning a championship in court is not the way to do it.
Hey, I watched F1 for a long time. It's the way F1 works, and it was understood by all the teams too. If you don't like it, sucks to you then

well FIA still had not released the evidence that they received. Untill that is clarified, we can only guess. And McLaren as a whole didn't lie. Ron knows nothing about it and so has the majority of the employees, and they came to give their views to the WMSC.

depends on wether or not Macca's appealing.
But honestly, $100M? what is WMSC going to do with that money? And what if a lesser known team get into the same kind of trouble? fine them for less because they can't pay it? And what if a disgruntled employee held the team for ransom, threathening to go public saying that he was given a secret dossier from a rival team? wouldn't this be more damaging?

meh, I don't want to talk about Ferrari. The more important thing is now why there is no charges against Stepney by the FIA. Ferrari, well good luck to them. sad to see them win this way tho.

Honda WAS interested, but they cut ties with Coughlan and Stepneu the moment stepney and the white powder case arises.
And I still found it weird that Stepney will do all this without gaining something in return. He is the root in all this, and yet, he seemed to be irrelevant.

Not according to the team.

and I do think macca will appeal.

Blantant cheating was 5M GBP and 2 race ban only remember? they did it at the San Marino GP in 2005.

Raikkonen pole

Well RTM still has ITV, which IMO is better. Considering that I will be waiting for sahur, I rather watch that than crappy Star Sports commentators. They have better juicy news as well

Lol, the latest aero data that McLaren had was during the Spanish GP, and during that time, the wind tunnel at Ferrari broke down for 2 months. Rendering all data during that time useless.

looks more like turkey. The Macca should ONLY be faster at the third section, while the Ferraris will look good for the initial two. Kinda hard to guess, but I think Ferrari will be faster (just) here.

not quite. Rain, Ferrari's unreliability, etc. they can play a part in the race. And IIRC, Massa will be on his second engine while Kimi and both of the Macca's are on their new at Japan. Thus Massa will be a lot careful that most

Somehow Kimi seems not to overcome his car wreck curse. And it's seems to infect Felippe too nowadays. Ironic that the moment he left Macca they have a 100% finishing record...