McLaren's HQ Investigated / Renault to answer spying charge

Sting

Just when you think it was all over......

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/sport...after+F1+spy+team+swoop+on+McLaren/article.do

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Skid Mark 33

The FIA are heavily biased. They've punished McLaren, and now they are going to question Renault. But have they punished Ferrari in anyway what so ever. Oh no...

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Skid Mark 33

The FIA are heavily biased. They've punished McLaren, and now they are going to question Renault. But have they punished Ferrari in anyway what so ever. Oh no...

Click to expand...

Skid Mark 33

The FIA are heavily biased. They've punished McLaren, and now they are going to question Renault. But have they punished Ferrari in anyway what so ever. Oh no...

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<_Spike_>

Exactly, they were punished for other things (such as the moving floor of their car) but otherwise they've surprisingly done nothing wrong.

Eitherwho, hope this is all dealt with before the next season starts...

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Eagle

From what I read on F1-Live, 'raid' was just the terminology used in a press release, I didn't get the impression they rappelled down out of a black helicopter, smashed in a window, tossed in a smoke cannister, stole a database server and then rendezvoused at the LZ.

That would have been way more interesting though.

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Metar

The first part is odd - they weren't punished for the moving floor. They simply couldn't use it any more...

But the second part is what, I guess, every F1 fan wants now.

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F1 SPYING SCANDAL DEEPENS AND WORSENS AND THEN DEEPENS A BIT MORE AGAIN

There was almost no shock whatsoever in Formula 1 this week with news that the FIA is to investigate Renault for spying. According to a man who was speaking next to the FIA building, &#8216;Following a tip off from an anonymous source in the Modena region of Italy we are looking in to claims that Renault Formula 1 have contravened the rules of the sport and may be docked points both for utilising illegally acquired data and for competing in a car that wasn&#8217;t red&#8217;. The speakersman refused to give any more details has he had to rush off &#8216;to give Jean Todt a back massage&#8217;.

However, some F1 insiders have already hinted that Renault may not be the last team to become embroiled in an embarrassing and ultimately costly McLaren-style scandal. High ranking sources are suggesting that it is only a matter of days until every other F1 team is called up on spying charges, except Ferrari who have of course never cheated at anything. Already, in the special paddock that all teams assemble in during the off season to allow sentences like this rumours are circulating that Williams may have been using data from BMW, that BMW may have been using data from Toyota, that Toyota may have been using data from Torro Rosso, that Torro Rosso may have been using data from Super Aguri, that Super Aguri may have been using data from Spyker, that Spyker may have been using data from Red Bull, that Red Bull may have been using data from Honda and that Honda may have been using data from the 1991 Leyton House team, but upside down so that none of it worked properly.

If these rumours are proved to be true the FIA may be forced to minimise the damage to F1 by bring this whole affair to a sharp and definite conclusion, a view shared by one senior junior. &#8216;One way of doing this would be simply to say that all teams are forbidden from scoring points until 2025, except Ferrari&#8217; he admitted. &#8216;Frankly, it would be a lot more straightforward than the original way they were going to use to get that rule introduced&#8217;.

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Blake

Honda may have been using data from the 1991 Leyton House team, but upside down so that none of it worked properly.

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Blake

F1 SPYING SCANDAL DEEPENS AND WORSENS AND THEN DEEPENS A BIT MORE AGAIN
There was almost no shock whatsoever in Formula 1 this week with news that the FIA is to investigate Renault for spying. According to a man who was speaking next to the FIA building, &#8216;Following a tip off from an anonymous source in the Modena region of Italy we are looking in to claims that Renault Formula 1 have contravened the rules of the sport and may be docked points both for utilising illegally acquired data and for competing in a car that wasn&#8217;t red&#8217;. The speakersman refused to give any more details has he had to rush off &#8216;to give Jean Todt a back massage&#8217;.

However, some F1 insiders have already hinted that Renault may not be the last team to become embroiled in an embarrassing and ultimately costly McLaren-style scandal. High ranking sources are suggesting that it is only a matter of days until every other F1 team is called up on spying charges, except Ferrari who have of course never cheated at anything. Already, in the special paddock that all teams assemble in during the off season to allow sentences like this rumours are circulating that Williams may have been using data from BMW, that BMW may have been using data from Toyota, that Toyota may have been using data from Torro Rosso, that Torro Rosso may have been using data from Super Aguri, that Super Aguri may have been using data from Spyker, that Spyker may have been using data from Red Bull, that Red Bull may have been using data from Honda and that Honda may have been using data from the 1991 Leyton House team, but upside down so that none of it worked properly.

If these rumours are proved to be true the FIA may be forced to minimise the damage to F1 by bring this whole affair to a sharp and definite conclusion, a view shared by one senior junior. &#8216;One way of doing this would be simply to say that all teams are forbidden from scoring points until 2025, except Ferrari&#8217; he admitted. &#8216;Frankly, it would be a lot more straightforward than the original way they were going to use to get that rule introduced&#8217;.

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Eagle

From what I read on F1-Live, 'raid' was just the terminology used in a press release, I didn't get the impression they rappelled down out of a black helicopter, smashed in a window, tossed in a smoke cannister, stole a database server and then rendezvoused at the LZ.

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Honda may have been using data from the 1991 Leyton House team, but upside down so that none of it worked properly.

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Blake

Renault are screwed. Any less than the punishment McLaren received would not be fair and there would be an uproar.

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TheMoose

Ummm....it was Ferrari's information that was stolen, why should they be punished?

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Renault have suspended one of their engineers after the FIA charged them on Thursday with possessing confidential information belonging to McLaren-Mercedes.

The FIA has ordered the team to appear in Monaco before its World Motor Sport Council on December 6, to answer a charge in relation to a breach of article 151c of the International Sporting Code.

Renault, world champions in both 2005 and 2006, moved to defend themselves on Friday by revealing that they have suspended the individual involved - named as Phil Mackereth.

They have also informed the FIA and McLaren, erased all records of the information, returned the original copies to their rivals and launched an investigation.

In a statement the team said: "On September 6 it came to our attention that an engineer (Phil Mackereth) who joined the team from McLaren in September 2006 had brought with him some information that was considered to be proprietary to McLaren.

"This information was contained on old style floppy discs and included copies of some McLaren engineering drawings and some technical spreadsheets.

"This information was loaded at the request of Mr Mackereth on to his personal directory on the Renault F1 Team file system.

"This was done without the knowledge of anyone in authority in the team."

Drawings

Renault claimed their investigation revealed Mackereth had shown fellow engineers a few reduced-scale engineering drawings, which covered the internal layout of the McLaren fuel tank, the basic layout of the gear clusters, a tuned mass damper and a suspension damper.

However, the team denied that the information had been used to gain any advantage.

"Witness statements from the engineers involved have categorically stated that having been briefly shown these drawings, none of this information was used to influence design decisions relating to the Renault car," added the statement.

"In the particular case of the tuned mass damper, these had already been deemed illegal by the FIA and therefore the drawing was of no value.

"ING Renault F1 Team have co-operated fully with McLaren and the FIA in this matter to the extent that the team has invited McLaren's independent experts to come and assess the team's computer systems and inspect the cars and the design records, to demonstrate that this unfortunate incident has not in any way influenced the design of the cars.

"ING Renault F1 Team have acted with complete transparency towards McLaren and the FIA, being proactive in solving this matter, and we are fully confident in the judgment of the World Council."

Renault's charge is the second such to hit the sport this year after McLaren were given a record £47.5 million fine having been found guilty of the same charge in September.

The team were also thrown out of the constructors' championship after they were found to be in possession of technical information belonging to Ferrari.

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Flavio Briatore has protested Renault's innocence after being accused by the FIA of having "unauthorised possession" of McLaren data.

In the second spy scandal to hit Formula One this year, Renault will have to appear before the World Motor Sport Council in Monaco on 6th December to answer the charges against them.

And although Briatore has conceded that Renault's recently suspended engineer Phil Mackereth "showed" some technical drawings of McLaren systems to his new colleagues at Renault, the team boss denies making use of the data.

"When we found out in September, we talked with this guy (Mackereth), we started an investigation and immediately suspended the guy and then immediately we informed McLaren and the FIA," Briatore told The Times.

"We gave to Mr (Max) Mosley all the correspondence and the evidence and a statement from our engineers making clear we never used any McLaren system in our car.

"The information was in the computer, it was in the disks that this guy brought. It was very simple. It was a drawing of a few systems, it was part of a drawing of the gearbox and was part of a drawing of a mass-damper.

"I am confident the information was not used and not only me. We have witness statements from every engineer that was involved and, categorically, everybody says that there was no influence of any of these things on the design of our car."

The Italian also revealed that at the time Renault invited 'independent experts appointed by McLaren (Kroll security firm) to visit their headquarters in Enstone, Oxfordshire, to investigate what had happened to Mackereth's data.'

However, he added the officials visit was a short one and that they simply took back the relevant disks.

"We were happy to let them inspect our computer, we wanted to give McLaren the opportunity to check that there was no influence on the design of our car, but they never took up the offer," he said.

The newspaper, though, reports that Briatore's account differs to that of the published versions 'which suggest that the Kroll team did examine the hard drives of the Renault computer system and that the dossier sent to the FIA by McLaren includes at least 15 statements from Renault engineers admitting that they had discussed the material brought by Mackereth.'

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Skid Mark 33

At the start of the year, it was proven that they'd been spying on McLaren had'nt it?

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