Ferrari Mailing List: Great article about Stepneygate

[A.J. Merrifield (101pdt]

*SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS,
Belgium<http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/14/business/prix.4-134266.php#>
:* A day after the world of Formula One was shocked by a $100 million fine
over spying, the racing federation on Friday revealed some extraordinary
details of the scandal.

In a 15-page account - including details from e-mails and cellphone text
messages - the International Automobile Federation explained its punishment
of the previous day against McLaren Mercedes. What came out was a tale of
intrigue, and insight into the workings of the pinnacle of motor racing.

In Formula One, each team spends hundreds of millions of dollars each season
to build a car to gain precious seconds on the competition. Sharing
intellectual property is, to a degree, part of the game, with teams
employing photographers to take pictures of the elaborate technology
belonging to the opposition to garner the slightest advantage.

But the federation concluded that the McLaren team probably had gained an
unfair advantage by obtaining data from its rival Ferrari. On Thursday, in
addition to the fine, it excluded McLaren from the constructors'
championship this season.

The case first broke in the media in the days leading up to the British
Grand Prix on July 8. But its beginnings can be traced to the retirement
from Ferrari of Michael Schumacher last year after 11 seasons with the team,
and the resulting sabbatical of Ross Brawn, the team's technical director.

Nigel Stepney, a right-hand man to Brawn, was unhappy about his new boss.
According to the federation report, as early as the first race of the season
in mid-March, the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne, Stepney began to
communicate with his friend and former colleague, Mike Coughlan, McLaren's
chief designer, about details on Ferrari's car and team strategy.

When the scandal broke in July, it focused only on a 780-page document found
at Coughlan's home in England.

Ferrari claimed that it had been tipped off about the document by an
employee of a copy shop in Woking, England, where McLaren is based, as the
employee was a Ferrari fan and became suspicious about the document. But,
according to Stepney, in an interview with the British media in early July,
Ferrari had been following his movements all season.

On July 4, McLaren said that the data had not been transferred to the car or
used by anyone else within the company, and that it had been an isolated
incident involving a rogue employee.

But the evidence issued Friday suggests otherwise. Coughlan and Stepney were
shown not only to be communicating regularly since before the first race of
the season - won by Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari - but also to be contact with
two drivers of the McLaren tam.

Coughlan had worked with the McLaren test driver, Pedro de la Rosa, on
another team years ago. Coughlan shared some information in e-mail exchanges
with de la Rosa.

"Hi Mike, do you know the Red Car's Weight Distribution?" de la Rosa wrote
in an e-mail to Coughlan on March 21, three days after the first race. "It
would be important for us to know so that we could try it in the simulator."
At the hearing Thursday, de la Rosa confirmed that Coughlan had responded by
text message "with precise details of Ferrari's weight distribution."

De la Rosa then sent an e-mail to Fernando Alonso, the McLaren driver and
reigning world champion, setting out the Ferrari's weight distribution to
two decimal places on each of Ferrari's two cars as they were set up for the
Australian Grand Prix.

"Its weight distribution surprises me," Alonso responded in an e-mail. "I
don't know either if it's 100 percent reliable, but at least it draws
attention." De la Rosa responded on 25 March, saying: "All the information
from Ferrari is very reliable. It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former
chief mechanic."

De la Rosa then mentioned to Alonso in the e-mail that in the first race of
the season, Stepney was "the same person who told us" before the race the
exact lap on which Raikkonen would make his first pit stop in the Ferrari.

Other information provided included such things as a special gas that
Ferrari used to inflate its tires to reduce the internal temperature and
blistering of the rubber.

"We'll have to try it, it's easy," de la Rosa wrote to Alonso.

E-mail exchanges continued through April, when de la Rosa asked Coughlan for
details on Ferrari's braking system, and Coughlan told him.

In June, Ferrari started proceedings in court in Modena, Italy, against
Stepney.

The Italian police provided the racing federation with evidence that showed
Coughlan and Stepney had exchanged 288 text messages and 35 telephone calls
between March 11 and July 3.

For the federation, this evidence seemed to nullify the argument that two
rogue employees had simply been sharing data.

"The advantage gained may have been as subtle as Coughlan being in a
position to suggest alternative ways of approaching different design
challenges," the report says.

The report says that the evidence led the federation "to conclude that some
degree of sporting advantage was obtained, though it may forever be
impossible to quantify that advantage in concrete terms."

After the report was released Friday, Dennis continued to deny that the team
had gained any advantage and he also pointed out that he had himself
supplied some of the final evidence after he learned about it at the
Hungarian Grand Prix on Aug. 5.

"We now have seven days to appeal and are carefully considering the
company's position once we have a full understanding of the FIA's findings,"
Dennis said, referring to the federation.