Spy row to cost McLaren big time?

  • Thread starter <_Spike_>
  • 71 comments
  • 3,620 views
<_Spike_>

<_Spike_>

1,637
According to reports in Spain, Fernando Alonso would be free to leave McLaren should the Woking team be found guilty in the espionage scandal currently engulfing Formula One.

Although opinion is split regarding the outcome of Thursday's FIA hearing into the matter, as.com has claimed there could be yet another 'penalty' for Ron Dennis's outfit should any blame be laid at its door.

Sanctions, should the team be found culpable of benefiting from Mike Coughlan's decision accept a 700-page dossier of information from a Ferrari insider, could range from a heavy fine, via the loss of all constructors' championship points, to the stripping of all points in both the teams' and drivers' championships.

Such an outcome would leave Alonso and current leader Lewis Hamilton with nothing to show for their five wins and consistent podium appearances this season.

However, it is now being alleged that the two-time world champion could be free to leave McLaren should his image be damaged by the team's involvement in the scandal.

Dennis has repeatedly claimed that nothing contained in the Ferrari technical package has appeared on McLaren's MP4-22 - which returned to winning ways with Alonso at the Nurburgring on Sunday - but paddock rumour claims that the FIA has enough proof that the information has been used to throw the book at McLaren.

Despite Dennis's denials regarding the use of Ferrari intellectual property on McLaren's car, the information could nevertheless have potentially been used to gain a competitive advantage.

McLaren also launched a successful protest against the 'flexible floor' introduced by Ferrari at the start of the season - something cynics say would not have been possible without back-up information detailing the part - based on email conversations between Coughlan and Ferrari's Nigel Stepney.
Click to expand...

SkySports

Not good for McLaren if reports are correct...
 
Thursday is going to be one interesting day. It's a shame that the defining point of the season could be from an event inbetween races.
 
so both teams could be reduced to 0 points?

if so
I always supported Williams BMW :sly:
 
Oh good, back to a 'loyal' ferrari fan. Hey look at that I'm even wearing my ferrari puma shirt!
 
Well I don't want us(BMW) to beat Mclaren because of something like this 3rd place would taste some much better than getting 2nd place in this way , but then again if Mclearn knowingly used Ferrari info to gain an advantage the deserve what happens to them, but if they are punished because of one man's actions that would seriously suck .
 
I don't think anyone wants to see McLaren and/or Ferrari thrown out. It would be a very hollow victory for whoever picked up the pieces. I think heavy fines and probation would suffice. Teams are made up of a couple-hundred people, not one.
 
Am I the only one who thinks that nothing will come of this? I've followed this from the start and watched as the media and internet reports have snowballed this into something unimaginely(sp?) big, evolving the story not with solid facts, but with a bunch of heresay from a bunch of armchair "experts".
You only have to look at the above report to see that there isn't a single quote from the most reliable resourse in such a situation. A governing/ruling body.

Plus who cares. They're all th same anyway!
 
Kylehnat
I don't think anyone wants to see McLaren and/or Ferrari thrown out. It would be a very hollow victory for whoever picked up the pieces. I think heavy fines and probation would suffice. Teams are made up of a couple-hundred people, not one.
Click to expand...

Yeah, try telling Max Mosley that, he's the one saying the team should be punished as a whole, regardless of who knew about it.
 
I'm sorry but a team win together, a team lose together and a team should be punished together.

If one person has done something that leads to the whole team being punished then it is not only the punishment handed out by the governing body that wll affect them but that of the team aswell.
 
McLaren should be punished if...

A) They used some of the stolen paperwork/diagrams or whatever and put it on their car or even tested it on a track.

B) Knew of the incident and failed to tell straight away.

If Stepney took the information but McLaren didn't know about it, I don't think they should be punished. That's just a personal observation, I don't know how the rules deem it.
 
The way I see it, the FIA would have to prove beyond resaonable doubt that McLaren management knew about the information Stepney gave to Coughlan and authorised it to be used. If Coughlan was smart, he would have run McLaren's data so that it gradually matched that use dby Ferrari. That way it would look like they had simply come to the same conclusions, and at the very worst would be a case of plagiarism. If Coughlan simply passed the Ferrari data off as McLaren's without any testin, it would look suspicious.

But then, I've bene wrong before.
 
I think one questions is how did Mclaren know about Ferrari's flexing floors? They don't have camera's there , they can't see the cars floors while the car is moving , maybe they did get some outsider/insider info
 
This is going to suck if McLaren were disqualified from the championship and even a bigger blow for Alonso and Hamilton if they had their points deducted.All of this because of one man.If i was Mclaren,i would fire Coughlan straight away and settle the problem once and for all.But the thing is,was Coughlan and Stepney planning to move to Honda?If so,then i put the blame on Honda if they were to use the information to build the car (and if Honda knew about this as well.....)
 
mnm_bmx
This is going to suck if McLaren were disqualified from the championship and even a bigger blow for Alonso and Hamilton if they had their points deducted.All of this because of one man.If i was Mclaren,i would fire Coughlan straight away and settle the problem once and for all.But the thing is,was Coughlan and Stepney planning to move to Honda?If so,then i put the blame on Honda if they were to use the information to build the car (and if Honda knew about this as well.....)
Click to expand...
Coughlan and Stepney aproached Honda looking for a job. Nick Fry confirmed it, but they approached him before they were exposed; Coughlan and Stepney must have known their time was limited. Honda have done nothing wrong and don't deserve any blame; they're apparently co-operating in the fullest extent (but the RA107's sheer underperformance would probably clear them; there's no way Ferrari's current car is so mediocre). You're saying they're guilty by association, which means every team should probably be prosecuted because Coughlan and Stepney have been in the sport for a long time and probably know people in each team.

Firing Stepney and Coughlan wouldn't solve the problem at all. The problem is that Ferrari's technical details may have been used to build the McLaren car. Yes, Coughlan may have included that data into the MP-4/22, but the car has already been built. The data has possibly already been used and put into practice.
 
geez...you know, a Formula 1 car's become a 10 sq-foot Country that moves a 200MPH, and the FIA's now the U.N. Teams shouldn't HAVE to worry about this sort of crap, we shouldn't have to have spying and stuff like this. Formula 1, in fact, is the only motorsport series in the world tha I've heard does this sort of thing. These things remind me too much of Washington. The only difference is that the FIA can't declare War.

I guess, if you put enough money into it, even sports can become politics, warts and all. 'least the cars go fast.
 
Hmmm, a good result for now, but it's still going to hang over the team and the drivers for the rest of the season.
 
Despite Ferrari giving preference to Schumi during all his years there, it rarely "hung over" him in the fact that he was world champion for so many years running. I doubt this will hang over the McMerc team.
 
Ron Dennis will make sure the team just get on with it now they don't have to worry about any disqualification or mass points deduction
 

Similar threads

Krivousti
McLaren MP4/13 Mercedes 1998
Replies
0
Views
926
Krivousti
Krivousti
Jimlaad43
Formula 1 AWS Grand Prix du Canada 2024
5 6 7
Replies
192
Views
9K
Jimlaad43
Jimlaad43
IcarusDragon
Anyone else getting PSN warnings for McLaren liveries?
Replies
15
Views
2K
Racerx_34
Racerx_34
dabz343
For the Love of McLaren
Replies
0
Views
995
dabz343
dabz343
Dotini
How Can McLaren be Fixed?
Replies
9
Views
1K
Tired Tyres
Tired Tyres

Latest Posts

Back