Still not in any way convinced about the scale of this punishment. It does look like a sop to Ferrari who were outraged when McLaren
didn't get punished last time.
There is such a thing as intent, that's the key to all this.
Okay so clearly someone* leaked the secrets to Mr Coughlan of McLaren because the 780 page document was found at his house. However was this under 'team' orders or just a rogue employee? (now lets not forget that the leaking of the document was almost certainly the work of a rogue employee)
At least some of the high up's knew that the the documents existed but its never been made clear if this was before or after Ferrari found out.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BBC News
Dennis is confident their findings will reveal the information in Coughlan's possession was not used to develop the McLarens.
However, it emerged during the hearing McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale was aware Coughlan had the documents.
It is unclear, though, whether Neale knew before or after Ferrari started their legal case.
See here |
However what seems to be a given is that the only person who acted to get these documents was Mike Coughlan. He's never said that anyone else was involved in the intital contact or that it was under orders form the team. So basically McLaren may have found out that one of their guys had the documents before Ferrari announced that they'd gone missing. It appears from the quote above that Jonathan Neale knew of the documents but that may well have been it. At worst this happened a number of days before Ferrari realised where they were and started making accusations.
Also once this document was in Mike Coughlan's possetion, did he actually pass any of it on directly? Did the rest of team know that he had it? Was it a case of him coming into the office and saying “I've had an idea lads, why don't we set this componant up this poisition instead.” or was it “Well Ferrari have worked out that this componant on their car works best in this position, let's test it for ours” From the comments in the article, it appears it was certainly not the second scenario.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BBC News
The entire engineering team in excess of 140 people provided statements to the FIA affirming they had never received or used the Ferrari information.
See here |
So at worst this was the first scenario but then it's a very heavy punishment for the team if they didn't know the knowledge was being used. Only if Jonathan Neale knew well in advance and just kept quiet and left Mike Coughlan to continue tweaking the car** would a punishement such as this seem fair. If this were the case, I'd expect this to have been all over the news but it not. Not even an accusation of this so I suspect it can be fairly dismissed.
Realistically this was down to the FIA stating at the end of the last court hearing that;
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BBC News
If it is found in the future that the Ferrari information has been used to the detriment of the championship, we reserve the right to invite McLaren back in front of the world council where it will face the possibility of exclusion from not only the 2007 championship but also the 2008 championship
See here |
So they had no choice but to be excessively (and going on the evidence in the public domain to date, I do believe this is excessive) harsh. However I still haven't seen any proof that the information was used knowingly by McLaren. Certainly not to the "detriment of the championship". If it was then why not also punish the drivers who must have benifitted from the info (if it was used)?*** Hey while were at it, why such a Harsh punishment for a team due to the actions of a single rogue employee? Are the FIA going to say they the top guys knew weeks in advance of the document that they covered it up? I await todays FIA details with interest. As far as I am concerned unless they can prove that Mike Coughlan told the team (or at least the top people) that he had the doc and they did nothing and left him to it for a substantual time then the punishment is just plain excessive and clearly being put in place to placate other teams etc. Maybe even as a deterent to others doing the same **** that's the only crazy context that it makes sense.
My next concern is how the hell are McLaren going to be able to defend next years car? it was stated by the FIA that:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BBC News
The team must also prove there is no Ferrari "intellectual property" in their cars next year before racing.
See here |
So if, as it appears to date, the rest of McLaren were unaware of the Ferrari doc until the accusation. How are they going to know what is Ferrari IP? They haven't seen the doc (and all swore in court this was the case) and if they are shown the doc then it kind of defeats the object. So they are going to have to hope that Mike Coughlan didn't use it before he was found out to direct their research down certain paths?
I am sure that McLaren will miss at least one or two races next year as Ferrari claim various enhancements are their's even if McLaren can prove the steps they took to reach that point.*****
Like I said before, I'm interesting awaiting the FIA statement later.
Scarlett.
*I say someone because Mr Stepney has only been accused and convicted yet.
** The 2007 car would already have been designed well before this dossier got to McLaren so it wont have affected this years car massivly.
*** I believe the expression used by the BBC reporter was "So they don't shoot the Golden goose." Hamilton has done more for F1 this year than Max and Bernie for the last 5.
**** Yea, Leak secrets and we'll get you, your family, the family dog, the neighbours, Bob the milkman and old Granny Welling who you occasionally collect a paper for.
***** There are basically only so many ways to solve a given problem so it's quite likely that at least some of these will have been solved in the same way by Ferrari and McLaren.