FIA says has new evidence in spy case By Alan Baldwin Wednesday, September 5th 2007, 15:06 GMT Formula One's governing body said on Wednesday that it had received new evidence relating to a spying controversy involving McLaren and Ferrari and an appeal hearing scheduled for next week had been withdrawn. The International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement that its World Motor Sport Council had instead been reconvened for a hearing in Paris on September 13, the date scheduled for the appeal. It added that representatives of championship leaders McLaren, who could face exclusion from the championship, had been invited to attend. "Following receipt of new evidence, the World Motor Sport Council has been reconvened for a hearing in Paris on September 13," it said. Asked about the new information, an FIA spokesman said the world body was "not in a position to make any comment at this stage." The World Motor Sport Council decided in July not to impose any penalty on Mercedes-powered McLaren because of insufficient evidence that they had benefited from Ferrari data in the possession of their suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan. However the governing body said at the time that the matter was not closed. "If it is found in the future that the Ferrari information has been used to the detriment of the championship, we reserve the right to invite...McLaren back in front of the WMSC where it will face the possibility of exclusion from not only the 2007 championship but also the 2008 championship," it said . Ferrari, McLaren's title rivals, were incensed by the original council verdict and FIA president Max Mosley sent the decision to the body's International Court of Appeal. "The FIA President's referral of the matter to the International Court of Appeal has been withdrawn," the FIA said on Wednesday. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton leads double world champion teammate Fernando Alonso by five points going into Sunday's Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari's home race, at Monza. Ferrari's Felipe Massa is 15 points behind Hamilton with teammate Kimi Raikkonen one point further adrift with five races remaining.
This would seem to be very bad news for McL. RD has got to be sweating bullets big time. I wonder, however, since this is not an appeal if Ferrari will be able to present their side of the case which they were not allowed to do initially ? Or is there now enough evidence to penalize McL satisfactorily ? Time will tell. Can't wait for the 13th.
Ferrari was allowed to state their case. They simply either 1) did a piss poor job of it or 2) didn't really have a case which lead to the initial ruling. They then used a back door approach to get the appeal. I'll agree with you though that this doesn't bode well for one of the teams involved.
You may want to double check that. IIRC I believe they were only invited to attend. They were not allowed to represent themselves which they would have at the appeal.
They were allowed to represent themselves. Todt gave evidence, their attorneys gave evidence and they were allowed to call witnesses. At the end of all that the FIA made their ruling. Ferrari blew it or didn't have a case and then got the appeal.
I don't neccessarily think that "Ferrari blew it." I think there is another way to look at it and that is, that Ferrari "maybe assumed" that they didnt need to bring enough evidence because they may have thought that the ruling would go their way. Another thing to consider is that "more evidence," just like a crime scene, can be found days after the crime has been commited. Plus, what we know is what we read in the tabloids (which isnt always 100% correct) and this may not be giving us all the full details of what transpired at the original hearing.
No they were not allowed to represent themselves. The Ferrari people including Jean Todt were only allowed to be present period.
From F1Complete timeline "31 July 2007 FIA president Max Mosley agrees to send the espionage case against McLaren to the governing body's Court of Appeal. Following the written request of Ferrari's national sanctioning organisation, the Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI), Mosley said it was right to further investigate the case because Ferrari had not been allowed to present evidence in last Thursday's hearing of the World Motor Sport Council." Todt did not give evidence, their attorneys did not give evidence and they were not allowed to call witnesses. Your statement is fiction.
...I guess Senna21 will call THAT a back door... AS stated by senna21: "They simply either 1) did a piss poor job of it or 2) didn't really have a case which lead to the initial ruling. They then used a back door approach to get the appeal." ...
Hardly. Before the hearing Ferrari submitted their memorandum dated July 16th, 2007 along with supporting documents which together totaled 118 pages! Ferrari did not send McLaren the memorandum. How sporting of them! McLaren did not see the document until two days before the hearing and in the meantime much of the document had been leaked (gee I wonder who did that?) to the Italian media. McLaren claimed that the document was grossly inaccurate and the Italian media, naturally, had already begun to try McLaren publicly. Judging by your and other, one sided opinion I'd say they've done a good job of it. Along with the Ferrari documents Ferrari who was represented by lawyers, were able to make submissions and ask questions throughout the hearing. Mr. Todt also gave evidence. "It was clear that the FIA President afforded Ferrari every opportunity to be heard in order to ensure that all relevant matters were heard by the WMSC. Indeed, at the very end of the proceeding, Ferrari intervened with a request to make further closing comments. Ferrari's request was permitted and their lawyer proceeded to make further detailed closing comments at some length."* You show up to the track with your best car and driver and you show up to court with your best case. If you can't get the result you should have gotten then you've blown it. If Ferrari had a better case and for some reason decided to not bring it (which doesn't seem to be the case) 118 pages, the best attorneys Ferrari has and Todt testifying and they still got a unanimous ruling against them. I'd say they blew it if they indeed did have a case. That's just me. There are always two sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in-between. You are correct. I was indeed referring to that as a back door. Without the involvement of ACI on behalf of Ferrari there would have been no appeal. I like all of you am interested to see what this new "evidence" is. *PitPass Dennis hits back, and how! 1/08/07
But the strange thing about all this is that Ferrari DIDN'T get a unanimous ruling against them - they found McLaren GUILTY yet didn't penalize them. That's what upset Ferrari the most.
It is also strange that the title says "Ferrari Appeal Withdrawn" if that is the case, why continue with the investigation? Did McL also appeal? They should drop it, they already got away with no points taken away....
This is getting better than the OJ trial. You must know that all of what you are saying that happened at the hearing in July happened between 10am and 4pm. There must have been quite a few speed readers and speed listeners to go through all that in one day. A quick hearing to get a tennant evicted takes about 3 hours and thats when its all cut and dry....no renty not housey. This had a lot more to it than that and there is no way a proper hearing could have happened in 1 day.
This is another quote from F1 Live. The espionage saga involving McLaren and Ferrari took a fresh turn on Wednesday. F1's governing body revealed in a statement that it has received 'new evidence' and had therefore decided to convene another hearing of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris. The meeting will happen on September 13th, in the place of an appeal of the original July 26th decision to not penalise Ron Dennis' Woking based team for spying on its Italian rivals. "The FIA President's referral of the matter to the International Court of Appeal has been withdrawn," the FIA said in a statement on Wednesday. The governing body also said McLaren representatives had been invited to attend the new meeting, but made no mention of Ferrari. Due to 'insufficient evidence' in July, the World Motor Sport Council found Woking based McLaren guilty of breaching the International Sporting Code but could not prove that the confidential Ferrari data had been improperly used. The FIA also said in July that the team faced exclusion from the 2007 and 2008 championships if it is 'found in the future that the Ferrari information has been used. ' FIA Statement "Following the receipt of new evidence the World Motor Sport Council has been reconvened for a hearing in Paris on September 13th. "In accordance with its decision of July 26th representatives of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes have been invited to attend the hearing. "The FIA Presidents referral of the matter to the International Court of Appeal has been withdrawn." McLaren Mercedes Statement "McLaren Racing has been made aware that new evidence has been presented to the FIA as part of their on-going investigation. "As a result we have been informed that the Court of Appeal Hearing scheduled for the 13th September in Paris will now comprise a meeting of the WMSC. "McLaren will continue to co-operate fully with the FIA." Source GMM / FIA / McLaren CAPSIS International
My gut feeling is we can stick a fork in McL...they're done for the year. Still amazes me that they were the only Michelin team immediately on the pace with Bridgestones. Faster than Ferrari in somes cases and blowing the current WCC into weeds. Something seems very fishy. Perhaps this new evidence will shed some light when it comes out.
+1...I just FEEL THE NEED TO KNOW if the press will be allowed to get inside the room... last time they said several media was to be invited in order to "spread the right idea to the world about what was happening inside"...so that gives me the impression that they just called a NEW MEETING instead , SO THEY CAN LEAVE THE PRESS OUT... hope we can have some real journalism on this matter...I mean, even I feel hurt by McLiaren!
I would have thought the same thing at the last hearing but we all know how that turned out. Hopefully there will be more divulged so we know exactly what "new evidence" is being presented. I want to see Ferrari win, but the only way I would be comfortable with McLaren being excluded from the race would be cold hard evidence that there is Ferrari technology and data being used to design/develop/run the 2007 McLaren cars.
You're all far too optimistic. The only reason FIA changed the appeal into another hearing is that they want Ferrari to prevent from presenting their arguments again
Other drivers and teams are involved.Alonso and Renualt maybe? http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19576.html F1 heads for serious trouble Formula 1 folk would be forgiven for having a sense of foreboding about an announcement this afternoon from the FIA, cancelling the upcoming International Court of Appeal and instead recalling the FIA World Council to re-examine the question of whether McLaren breached Article 151c of the International Sporting Code which states that those involved in the sport should avoid "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport" between March and July by having unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. The Council concluded at the end of July that there was "insufficient evidence that this information was used in such a way as to interfere improperly with the FIA Formula 1 World Championship." The FIA did, however, add that if further evidence emerged the decision might be reconsidered. Until the end of last week there was no sign of any new evidence, but it seems that the FIA may have received a tip-off from somewhere alleging that other evidence existed and where it could be found. We hear that the F1 teams have all received a fax in recent days from the FIA pointing out that it is their duty to report any information they may have with regard to information relating to the case, told to them by any of the drivers. This seems oddly specific and suggests that drivers are now involved in this affair. Whatever it was that emerged from the FIA questions was obviously sufficiently convincing for the federation to cancel its own appeal and bring the matter back before the WMSC. The question that no-one will answer is who is involved and what they know. One can speculate that there are teams out there who might have information which came from McLaren drivers and that they are entirely capable of using such information if it serves their purpose. It is no secret, for example, that at least one team would like to have Fernando Alonso in 2008 but he is under contract to McLaren. If McLaren is punished it is almost inevitable that there is a clause in his contract which would free him next year. The hows and the whys are not, however, the problem. They are merely tawdry details in an utterly unsavoury affair. The question that the World Council must answer is what to do about whatever it is that has come to light and what punishment would be used if there was evidence to justify penalising McLaren. The punishment for such an offence is not cast in stone. The organisers of the Turkish GP were charged with a breach of the same article and received a $5m fine and were reckoned to have got off lightly but that is not a case with any direct relevance. There was a similar espionage case a few years ago two former Ferrari employees were found guilty of industrial espionage in an Italian court and were given suspended jail sentences. The FIA says it is not involved because no-one made a complaint in that case and that the McLaren case is different because there was a very specific and formal complaint from Ferrari. The FIA knows that it must be incredibly careful in its dealings with the case because Mclaren has long felt victimised and if there is any hint of anything untoward the team might consider launching a civil case against the FIA for damaging the team's reputation. In the overall scheme of things there can be no good solution to this problem. If McLaren is found to need punishment it will destroy the illusions of many that the team was the last bastion of the sporting ideal. It is still hard to imagine Ron Dennis being involved in such things, but one must consider that team members can act independently of the team management but that is no defence as the FIA rules state that the team must be responsible for its people. It is hard to imagine how the punishment could not damage the World Championship, even if the drivers were left untouched. The big story this year is a positive one: Lewis Hamilton bringing in a new era for the sport. This would ruin that story and taint any result. There are subsidiary issues such as the question of whether Ferrari should be found guilty of breaching Article 151c because of the actions of Nigel Stepney, as he is alleged to have brought the sport into disrepute and was a Ferrari employee when he did it. There are also questions that may arise about whether Mike Coughlan told the whole truth in his affadivit. If he did not and that comes to light in the new revelations then he faces going to jail. McLaren's response to the announcement from the FIA was very muted. "McLaren will continue to co-operate fully with the FIA," the team said in a statement.
