OK Ferrari won, but....

[BRPORSCHE]

Mclaren go the FUCH away. Bunch of crybabies....

Renault summoned by FIA over ‘spying’ charges

The FIA has requested Renault appear before the World Motor Sport Council next month over allegations that the team had unauthorised possession of confidential data belonging to rivals McLaren.

In a statement released Thursday, the FIA confirmed: “The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between September 2006 and October 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, the Renault F1 Team had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, including, but not limited to the layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren F1 car, together with details of the McLaren fuelling system, gear assembly, oil cooling system, hydraulic control system and a novel suspension component used by the 2006 and 2007 McLaren F1 cars.”

The hearing will take place in Monaco on December 6th, 2007.

McLaren were fined $100 million and stripped of their 2007 constructors’ points earlier this year following a similar charge. They were found guilty of benefitting from possession of confidential Ferrari data.

[Neilk]

To add to this thread...

FIA begins probe into McLaren car
Thursday, 08, November, 2007, 12:21

McLaren say it is fully co-operating with the FIA after Formula 1’s governing body began its planned inspection of its 2008 car.

The Woking squad was ordered to present next year’s design for examination as part of the World Motor Sport Council’s verdict into ‘Spygate’, which also included a record fine and the wiping of its 2007 constructors’ points.

The examination is designed to ensure that none of the leaked Ferrari data that was found in McLaren’s suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan’s possession has been used on its new car.

Reports in the British press on Thursday say that a team of independent legal and technical experts spent two days at McLaren’s Technology Centre earlier this week examining all details relevant to the 2008 car before leaving with boxes of data for further analysis....


F1 has become a complete mess. So what happens if McLaren independently comes up with a similar idea to Ferrari's? McLaren almost has to study whatever copies they might have kept of Ferrari's documents in order not to copy any design elements. I'm not sure how that's going to work.

[legion]

What do you want to bet the Renault doens't get fined $100 millions?

[stealthn]

Man this is beyond stupid. Mclaren steals from Ferrari, Renault steals for McLaren....it's like steroids at the Olympics; everyone does them and sometimes they get caught.

They really need a change in F1, either let Ferrari sell their car information to recoupe some R&D costs, or it's time to go to the same car for everyone (that would be sad)

It will be interesting to see what happens without traction control, and I'd also like to see them bring back manual clutches for all gears, let's back to true racing and stop all this stealing and scandals that have been going on for years.....oh yeah and Ferrari never does anything wrong

[cairns]

Why should McLaren go away?

This started with Ferrari and Max's terrible handling of that situation. Is it OK for Ferrari to be crybabies and not McLaren? I'm not saying it's necessarily right- but this ***** has been going on for years- and last year Ferrari and Max opened the court doors for everyone.

Super Best Friends will be accusing Spyker (oops I mean "Force India") next. If you're an attorney 2009 promises to be a very exciting season.

Just think- there are at least 151 sections of the "International Sporting Code". There must be thousands of subsections.

[BRPORSCHE]

I am a tad biased towards Ferrari since I am a tifosi, but man this season just needs to end. I understand that Mclaren should be mad if Renault was stealing propietery information.

[cairns]

Unfortunately this season will always have a cloud over it. But I was glad to see Kimi win (and I'm not a Tifosi). But all in all I think McLaren had the better car this year and was the real champion manufacturer.

I was incensed that they punished the company and not the individuals responsible. FA walking away without any penalties- and retaining the ability to win the championship- was reprehensible in my view.

[Seric]

And they said F1 would lose it's "pazzaz" after Schumi left. They sure had drama, but I think it was a tad much, so they ended up hurting the prestigous championship.

At least Kimi won, for now. I can take solice in that.

[Deschodt]

It's kinda old news except for today's announcement of a date.. Renault did not strictly speaking steal anything...An ex McLaren employee came to work for Renault and he arrived with 3 disks of data... As I recall, Briatore immediately told Ron Dennis and the FIA about it, and he even used that as an example, publicly, of how this stuff happens, when McLaren was on the hot seat. I mean, you can't police what individuals will do... You can only control what your company will do about it, and AFAIK Renault went straight to the FIA with it.

I think McLaren got nailed because it was clear some engineers on the test team knew about the documents and used them, if you read the De La Rosa email transcripts. I think the Renault thing is a lot less clear cut.


And If they get slapped witha big Fine, Carlos Ghosn will pull the plug in a heartbeat !

[legion]

It's kinda funny that the FIA was willing to drop all the charges if Ron Dennis went away, even though he didn't seem to be directly involved in the situation...