And now Ferrari are considering appealing against the
decision.
CEO Jean Todt said the fact McLaren that
questioned Ferraris compliance with the bodywork regulations at
the start of the season and called for a clarification of the rules
was attributable to inside knowledge of his teams
designs.
And he claimed the more stringent bodywork deflection tests
subsequently introduced which were believed to hurt Ferrari more
than other teams showed that McLaren had gained an advantage even
if it had not incorporated Ferrari designs on its own car.
During [the WMSC] meeting, the McLaren bosses, with no exceptions,
admitted that their chief designer had obtained since back in
March, prior to the Australian GP, documents from Nigel Stepney,
said Todt.
Some of this data was used to prepare a clarification request
submitted to the FIA, aimed clearly at us, given that throughout
the Melbourne weekend, the McLaren team principal and his closest
colleagues made statements in which they threw doubt over some
cars.
Therefore, such information was in fact used to obtain an
advantage over us: not through an improvement in their performance,
but instead through limiting ours.
It is important to underline that the information used to try and
damage Ferrari through the FIA might be only a part of the
information received by McLaren.
Todt argued that possession of leaked information was sufficient
grounds for a penalty, and said it was unreasonable for the burden
of proof to lie with Ferrari.
As confirmed in that decision yesterday, the violation was already there in the simple
possession of the information, which in itself constitutes an
enormous advantage in a sport like Formula 1, he
said.
In Ferraris opinion, it is like playing a hand of poker with a
rival who already knows what cards you are holding.
It remains incomprehensible that apart from possession, one must
also demonstrate the effective and visible use of this information
on the McLaren car.
Actually, this very same fact, on the basis of available
information which the FIA used to find McLaren guilty, shows that
the offence lies in the possession without the need to prove
anything else.
The proof is there and this led to the FIAs decision. Therefore I
find it difficult to understand how the verdict makes sense.
Furthermore, I have to say that the
proof of effective use requested by the FIA is impossible for
Ferrari to furnish, because of course, Ferrari does not have access
to the McLaren car.
Todt accused McLaren boss Ron Dennis of reneging on an
understanding they had reached to establish a better working
relationship between the two arch-rival teams.
A few weeks after the race in
Melbourne, the McLaren team principal proposed that we should reach
a sort of agreement to establish a better relationship between our
two teams, thus avoiding any future denunciations to the sporting
authority, Todt said.
I replied that I found it impossible to believe him, because on
several occasions we had seen that certain commitments had always
been disregarded by McLaren.
There was an exchange of views and,
believing in their good faith, I agreed to sign this agreement on
9th June last.
Since that time and even earlier, McLaren was perfectly aware, not
only of the emails sent by their informer within our company, but
also of the fact that their chief designer had stayed in contact
with him and had received and continued to be in possession of a
significant amount of technical information that belonged to
us.
So, on the one hand, they had come to say let us trust one
another, and on the other they were hiding serious facts such as
those just stated above, but making no effort to inform us as would
have been in the spirit and to the letter of our agreement.
