As it happened

  1. Feb 2007: Nigel Stepney makes it public that he is not happy with new Ferrari team. After few days Stepney is made head of performance team and he no longer would be attending any races.
  2. June 23: Stepney accused of sabotaging Ferraris before raceday. Corrosive white powder is found in fuel tanks of the car. Stepney’s apartment is searched by cops and criminal case filed.
  3. July 3: Stepney dismissed after an internal inquiry by Ferrari. Ferrari accuses Mike Coughlan , McLaren’s chief designer suspected of espionage against Ferrari. Coughlan is suspended from McLaren team.
  4. July 4: Police raids Coughlan’s house and finds a 780 page Ferrari technical documents. McLaren confirms that no intellectual property is passed to any other members or is used in the cars.
  5. July 6: Honda team confirms that Stepney and Coughlan met Nick Fry, Team Principal, Honda for job opportunity. Honda clarifies no design documents were transferred.
  6. July 7: Max Mosley clears Honda in the scandal.
  7. July 11: Coughlan provides an affidavit specifying all the relevant facts. Ferrari on other hand agreed not to pass this affidavit to Italian authorities.
  8. July 16: McLaren confirms that ‘internal investigation’ confirms no Ferrari material was used or in possession of McLaren team member ( except Coughlan) before July 3. McLaren to face FIA World Motor Sport Council on July 16 for ‘keeping’ the other team’s technical document from March to July.
  9. July 19: sources confirmed that Stepney tipped off Coughlan about Ferrari’s movable floor design before the start of 2007 season and McLaren asked FIA for rule clarification regarding movable floor and FIA did not allow to use movable floor, thus significantly hampering Ferrari’s performance in Australian GP.

Pitpass reveals that main reason behind FIA summoning McLaren because of alleged similarities between this year’s McLaren ( MP422) and last year’s Ferrari ( f2007). Video footage shows there are similarities between body parts and McLaren is using the same unique decal technology (Vodafone stickers) developed by Ferrari. Supposedly McLaren is using the red paint used by Ferrari also which is not McLaren style as they are used to dull colors.

Corriere della sera, an Italian newspaper claims to have seen the affidavit by Coughlan to Ferrari, and according to it three top McLaren officials have seen the document, but all asked to destroy the document. This arises few questions:

1. Did McLaren lie about the fact that no other official than Coughlan has seen the document. If yes than McLaren would be in trouble for hiding facts and may face more charges.

2. How a Ferrari confidential document, which was not supposed to be made public (or to be provided to Italian authorities) is present with a newspaper. Either Ferrari did it purposely or there is another spy somewhere. Italian newspaper La Repubblica also claims to have a copy of the affidavit.

3. Question form Jose: Why isn’t a tech-savvy company using soft copies?

4. Why FIA could not notice all these things (logo, color, same design) before?

I want everyone to come out clean after this event; it would be good for sport. I hope only very few people are involved and those should be severely punished. As Coulthard mentioned ‘this’ is not a Hollywood movie and will end, this scandal will have deep impact on the game. I also want McLaren to be punished (if proven guilty) but drivers (Alonso and Hamilton) should not be stripped off points and should continue racing as now, McLaren would not be a contender in constructor championship then. It will be a lesson for other teams too.

I was trying to find out what impact does decals and colors had on the performance on McLaren but could not find any. Jose helped me out with it, decals can cause difference of 0.000001 ng in weight and Prasoon thinks depending on smoothness, probably an aero advantage. According to Jose brighter colors can cause temporary to permanent eye damage for the driver following, which could slow him down, but FIA Ferrari spokesperson did not like the idea.

Update: Disaster for McLaren, FIA is preparing a lot of question concerning 30 more similarities.

More links:
Greatest F1 scandals
Relates post
Formula One is no stranger to spying
2007 Formula One espionage controversy