In a letter to the sport's governing body, McLaren has admitted that more Ferrari information had infiltrated the team than had at first been realised or revealed.
The Woking-based outfit was fined a sporting record $100 million USD for having been found in possession of confidential Ferrari data earlier this year, and excluded from the 2007 constructors' championship at a World Motor Sport Council hearing in September.
With its 2008 car now
due to be heavily scrutinised by the FIA
before being cleared to race in case it is deemed to contain any influences from Maranello, McLaren has taken the step of writing to the governing body to apologise over the matter one that has rocked the sport to its core and insist it will offer its full co-operation in any upcoming inspections.
A statement on the team's official website reads as follows:
As a result of the investigations carried out by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, it has become clear that Ferrari information was more widely disseminated within McLaren than was previously communicated. McLaren greatly regrets that its own investigations did not identify this material, and has written to the World Motor Sport Council to apologise for this.
McLaren has written a letter to the FIA, which in the interests of transparency it is publishing with this press statement. That letter speaks for itself, and the sentiments expressed in it are sincerely held by McLaren. McLaren has also written to the World Motor Sport Council to apologise that it has taken an FIA investigation to find this information, and have expressed our deep regret that our understanding of the facts was improved as a result of the FIA inspection rather than our own investigations.
McLaren has recognised that this entire situation could have been avoided if we had informed Ferrari and the FIA about Nigel Stepney's first communication when it came to our attention. We are, of course, embarrassed by the successive disclosures, and have apologised unreservedly to the FIA World Motor Sport Council.
To avoid even the possibility of Ferrari information influencing our performance during 2008, McLaren has offered a set of detailed undertakings to the FIA which will impose a moratorium on development in relation to three separate systems. During the course of these incidents, McLaren has conducted a thorough review of its policies and procedures regarding the recruitment and management of staff. The proposals arising from this thorough review have been disclosed to the FIA, and McLaren has agreed to demonstrate that all of these policies and procedures have been fully implemented.
McLaren wish to make a public apology to the FIA, Ferrari, the Formula 1
community and to Formula 1 fans throughout the world, and offer their assurance that changes are now being made which will ensure that nothing comparable to what has taken place will ever happen again. McLaren have also agreed to pay the costs incurred by the FIA for their investigation.
McLaren now wishes to put these matters behind it and to move forward focusing on the 2008 season.'[/qoute]
Source -
http://www.crash.net/motorsport/f1/news/158116-0/mclaren_apologises_over_spy_saga.html
...now if you have a link that shows the inspections have been carried out and that McLarens letter is in regard to an inspection of the 2008 car it would be much appreciated.
How ever if the 2008 car inspections have not been carried out then we are back at a situation of no proof of use (and a voluntary moratorium on three systems is not an admission of guilt, particularly if one is quickshift as a number of manufacturers have been working in this area for the last few years)
Edited to add - Many appologies just found this....
McLaren were poised to use systems on their 2008 car that had been inspired by secret Ferrari information given to them by Nigel Stepney, the FIA's technical report on the matter reveals.
Having conducted a detailed examination of the design of McLaren's 2008 car, to see if any Ferrari intellectual property had been used, the FIA report published on Thursday claims that there was evidence of such activity.
Although what the specific parts and systems are have not been revealed, to keep McLaren's own technical secrets confidential, the report is adamant that some elements of the MP4-23 design was scheduled to include technology inspired by confidential Ferrari information.
The report states: "The [redacted - confidential] system appears to have been re-investigated and developed by McLaren as a result of the receipt of confidential Ferrari information.
"Despite senior McLaren management imposing a hiatus on development at the time the (Mike) Coughlan activities were revealed, McLaren now intend to use [redcated - confidential] on the 2008 car."
It added: "The [redacted - confidential] mechanism which McLaren has developed since the 3 May 2007 Coughlan meeting is intended to be used on the 2008 car and appears to have been initiated by the receipt of confidential Ferrari information."
Detailed examination of the report shows that one area where McLaren had appeared to utilise the Ferrari information was in the creation of a new brake balance system.
The report states: "It appears on the basis of these documents that the genesis of the idea to incorporate a [redacted - confidential] on the McLaren 2008 car emanated from the emails exchanged on 12 April 2007 concerning Ferrari's [redacted confidential] system and the meeting called on 3 May 2007 by Coughlan. We have not been presented with a convincing explanation to displace the impression given by the documents."
The report also states that McLaren were ready to consider the use of CO2 gas in their tyres, as Ferrari do. It is believed 'more likely than not' that the idea came to the team from information given by Nigel Stepney.
The report states: "We believe the general investigation by McLaren of the use of [redcated confidential] established further dissemination of confident Ferrari information to engineers within McLaren which has influenced their work on the 2007 and 2008 cars."
The FIA document also reveals that engineers within the team were aware of a Ferrari 'mole' passing information to them.
One email exchange between engineers on April 13, 2007 discussing steering angles mentioned an exact figure for the Ferrari wheelbase. A response from a senior McLaren engineer was: "Is the Ferrari wheelbase an accurate figure? Did it come from photos or our mole?"
The response was: "You will find it's to the nearest 'mm'."
The report states: "On a natural reading of this exchange and taking into account the suggested explanations for it, we have concluded that both [Senior McLaren Engineer] and [Senior McLaren Engineer] were aware that confidential Ferrari information was being leaked through a mole and were prepared to use that information for McLaren's benefit in the design of the 2007 and 2008 cars."
The report reveals that McLaren indeed decided to follow Ferrari's example and increase the wheelbase of their car for 2008, although it could not prove whether this was because of the secret Ferrari information or because of information that was readily available and in the public domain.
McLaren have apologised to the FIA for not being aware of just how far the Ferrari information obtained by the team had spread within their organisation, and the report reveals that even a 'Senior McLaren management figure' was aware of what was going on.
It states the unidentified senior McLaren management figure advised the team to abandon work on a secret technical development because of the spy case surrounding the team.
The report states that on August 8, a senior McLaren engineer communicated a decision reached by a senior McLaren management figure to junior staff members that they were to abandon their efforts on the development
"I would not change the [redacted confidential] direction until we have to, i.e., when we eventually run the [redacted confidential]. We will obviously ask for this again for Turkey but I'm not hopeful that we will run this until the outstanding FIA agro [sic] is resolved."
McLaren have vowed to cease development work on the parts that could have been inspired by Ferrari knowledge, and the FIA stated on Thursday night that it was now willing to bring the matter to a close.
Source -
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/64374
However I'm still of the opinion that the widespread use of 'believe' and nothing in the way of real proof, as the article states. The direction cars are headed in is quite common knowledge in a lot of areas, take for example the lower wheelbase of the '07 Ferrari, this has been discussed openly since the car was unveiled and a number of teams stated early this year that they may follow that lead if it was shown to work. Drawing an exact line between what is inspired by and what is a direct copy of it difficult enough already, before this situation came along.
The CO2 in tyres one is a good case in point, as the piece last month in Racecar Engineering covered, CO2 is not the main issue in this one at all. Quite frankly I doubt if Ferrari would give a damn if anyone else used CO2, as it was simply to act as a stable carrier to a cocktail of other gases, and these gasses were the ones that played an active role in controlling tyre temperature, not the CO2.
Yes, they can do whatever they want. The difference with the Renault case and McLaren/Ferrari is that Renault were (based on what we know) COMPLETELY OPEN AND TRUTHFUL about what they had, how they got it and what had been done with it, while McLaren were trying to deflect everything about their case.
Of course Renault would have taken the same approach had the McLaren situation not occurred; its also being forgotten on this one that McLaren went to the FIA about the Renault situation, not Renault.
It seems like you people have been brought up thinking that Ferrari is Evil and McLaren can do absolutely nothing wrong, well maybe it's time to think again ffs.
Sorry but I don't appreciate the tone or insinuation. Most people here have not been of the impression that McLaren have done no wrong at all. Simply we have asked that the punishment be proportionate to the situation and that similar situations are dealt with in a similar manner.
Personally I don't see either happening here, in addition I have not blamed Ferrari for this situation (in fact I have hardly mentioned them myself), nor have I said that McLaren can do no wrong. I follow drivers not teams, so the teams in question hold no particular loyalty issues (can you say as much), rather the situation interests me.
Regards
Scaff
and here is a quote from their latest piece of news: "The letter to Mosley seeks discussions "as to a moratorium of an appropriate length" on the use of "quickshift, fast fill and CO2 as a tyre gas."
optimist 
