OH ... THIS is RICH: RD praises scandal | FerrariChat

OH ... THIS is RICH: RD praises scandal

Discussion in 'Other Racing' started by SonomaRik, Aug 2, 2007.

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  1. SonomaRik

    SonomaRik F1 Veteran

    Ron Dennis praises the scandal as a whistle blowing event that exposes Ferrari to the FIA:

    can you believe this!!!!!!! http://www.totalf1.com/view-article.php?newsid=219960

    He states that Nigel Stepney was a 'whistle blower' and that should he have done it earlier, Ferrari would NOT have won the Australian opener because of the questionable floorboard incident.

    rich. I guess the best defense IS an good offense...
     
  2. ferrariHunter

    ferrariHunter Rookie

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    thanks for the article

    what i dont understand is why RD says that its illegal. I understand it that at the time of the Australian race the car was not illegal and then after the race there was a clarification of the rule. From that time forward the car would be illegal. Of course RD insists that that it ran the race illegally before the clarification.
     
  3. Senna1994

    Senna1994 F1 World Champ

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    Why didn't Stepney let the FIA know himself?
     
  4. ferrariHunter

    ferrariHunter Rookie

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    I like this part of the article "So far as Mr Taylor is concerned, Mr Coughlan briefly showed him a single diagram. Mr Taylor had no idea whether this was an old or new diagram and had no idea it came from Mr Stepney"

    &

    "Towards the end of this Mr Coughlan began to show Mr Neale two images, but Mr Neale stated that he was not interested in seeing them"

    He showed them a image/diagram and they did not questions anything???? YEAH RIGHT
     
  5. ricksb

    ricksb F1 Veteran

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    That's the $1,000,000 question. This is what gives the appearance of conspiracy with McLaren. Had they taken their findings and the fact Stepney was forwarding 'spy' information at least to the FIA (if not Ferrari), then they wouldn't appear to have done any wrong. However, RD and crew seemed all to comfortable with keeping the matter behind closed doors which only fuels the flames of suspicion.
     
  6. Senna1994

    Senna1994 F1 World Champ

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    Very Well put...
     
  7. Tifoso1

    Tifoso1 F1 Rookie

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    IIRC, the floor was designed and well within what the rule book "states": The floor can not flex beyond an allowable among "downward", Ferrari and BMW designed their cars with floor to flex "upward". It was not illegal until a protest was made, lead by McLaren-Mercedes.

    Had Stepney went to FIA first, it would still be meaningless since they were done well within the rules made by FIA itself. McLaren asked for clarifications on the rule, they did not say it was illegal since it wasn't at the time.
     
  8. SonomaRik

    SonomaRik F1 Veteran

    As whistle blowers go, Stepney can't even do that correctly.

    Perhaps he needed more documents :) to protect racing
     
  9. PhilNotHill

    PhilNotHill Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Stepney couldn't go to FIA. It was too far for him to travel with pants weighted down with over a pound white powder in the pockets.

    MM was closer and therefore he could make the trip. Simple logic would tell you that. :D
     
  10. ricksb

    ricksb F1 Veteran

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    More pointedly, he showed them an image/diagram and they didn't look??? YEAH RIGHT!
     
  11. PhilNotHill

    PhilNotHill Two Time F1 World Champ
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    It depends on what the definition of "is" is.

    It depends on what the definition of "look" is.

    You can look at something and not see it. You can "see" something and not look at it.

    The question is not whether they looked, but whether they "saw."

    Remember, justice is "blind" and so are McCheaters' employees, McCheaters' management and the FIA. :D
     
  12. chris1866

    chris1866 Formula Junior

    Mar 14, 2005
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    hahahahaha!!!

    +1 great post
     
  13. James_Woods

    James_Woods F1 World Champ

    May 17, 2006
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    Me too on that ++.

    When will people in the public light of a scandal ever learn that the bumbling coverup makes you far more guilty in the public's eye than the original crime itself?

    Isn't it ironic that it was the coverup attempt that finally got Richard Milhouse N., rather than the break-in itself?

    I think this poor guy is convicting himself in public - and did you see the picture on the link?

    He looks like he just sucked a lemon.
     
  14. SonomaRik

    SonomaRik F1 Veteran


    Exactly why Dennis' response is such a joke. In the face of overwhelming odds, he chooses an attack on the victim: "ya' I raped Ferrari, but they had a car in F1 afterall......"

    should have come clean....would make the Dennis supporters much easy to digest.

    Blind, yup......ummmm, what's that horsey thingie on the bottom right corner [coming from the xerox guy]
     
  15. Ira Schwartz

    Ira Schwartz Formula 3
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    That's exactly my question. I'm trying really hard not to take any of RD's comments out of context, but how can one be a whistleblower when, instead of taking his allegedly incriminating information to the authorities, he takes it to a competitor? And by the way, Stepney not only didn't go to the FIA, he apparently didn't share his info with the other 9 teams either, so what are we to think? I don't know if Stepney is characterizing himself as a whistleblower, but RD's claim that he was strikes me as disingenuous.
     
  16. 355

    355 F1 Rookie
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    As more and more of this tangled mess of silver and red wires gets untangled I believe we will find that the silver wires have many cuts and shorts in them and will lead to a rather large sanction against the McCheater team. Too much does not make sense and the more Ron Dennis speaks the worse it looks. There is no way that Ferrari would challenge this to the end if they did not have undeniable proof. They are really pissed so it must be for something other than just having their legal flexifloor design given up. I believe that this season as well as next have been totaly comprimised by what has happened. Maybe they have not gone public with everything they know so as to catch the McCheaters with their pants down again but this time in front of the world at the next set of hearings.
     
  17. PhilNotHill

    PhilNotHill Two Time F1 World Champ
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    +1

    And specifically he took it to a "friend" who was the chief designer for his employer's (SF) major competitors (the McCheater Team).

    This is hard to do whilst having a pound or more of white powder in your pants pockets. You have to admit that Stepney has talent. :D
     
  18. SonomaRik

    SonomaRik F1 Veteran

    interesting angle. what better way to trap someone than wait for them to hang themselves?
     
  19. vroomgt

    vroomgt Formula 3

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    From the RD statement



    “Were it not for Mr Stepney drawing this illegal device to the attention of McLaren, and McLaren drawing it to the attention of the FIA, there is every reason to suppose that Ferrari would have continued to race with an illegal car.

    From the same statement

    He said Ferrari employee Nigel Stepney, since dismissed by the team, had tipped off McLaren's chief designer Mike Coughlan in March that the Italian team's car was in breach of the regulations.

    "Specifically, he told Mr Coughlan about a floor attachment mechanism and a rear wing separator, both of which could be and were seen on the Ferrari car prior to the Australian Grand Prix," said Dennis.

    He said the governing body declared the rear wing separator to be legal but not the floor device.

    "As far as we are aware, Ferrari ran their cars with this illegal device at the Australian Grand Prix, which they won,"


    So which is it?

    Were they tipped of or did they see it themselves?
     
  20. ricksb

    ricksb F1 Veteran

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    Not trying to be a Ferrari homer, but that is the way I expect an official letter to be written. No inflammatory statements, no absurd defense of actions, no finger pointing just stating fact and purpose.

    RD should take lessons...he inserted both of his feet into his mouth (via his writing)
     
  21. moretti

    moretti Five Time F1 World Champ
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    well Tony, that would be the definition of a whistleblower in the generic form but Ronspeak has a different version.

    I now believe Lucifer wrote his own statement, the liars....err sorry, lawyers would never have written it like he did :)
     
  22. Ambassiatore

    Ambassiatore Formula Junior

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    ...RD is scared, that´s it...he thinks if they dig deeper, they´ll find the corpse...

    and Macaluso is right and brief and decent...why is he making all that noise?!!!
     
  23. SonomaRik

    SonomaRik F1 Veteran

    #24 SonomaRik, Aug 2, 2007
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Is it me or does anyone smell a smoking gun here? WHEN brought to attention of McLaren, McLaren brought it to attention of FIA...ummm, this timeline suggests McLaren knew about the documents and/or inter-communication [RD does say DRAWING !!! ] back in the first rounds of competition !!!!

    guess what, they knew.... they only didn't tell becuase they GOT CAUGHT, now, they are spinning this to be the Victim's fault.

    nailed it: start with a lie, and you don't know how to stop it....the lawyers are going:
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  24. speedy_sam

    speedy_sam F1 Veteran

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    RD's bleating that Ferrari were running illegal cars in Oz is weak sauce. He needs to wake up from the ivory tower where he is so firmly ensconsced.

    It is a long tradition in F1 that FIA put out the rules while the team tries to find loopholes within the rules which the FIA then plugs thru myriad number of clarifications. That's the way it always has been.

    What about when Michelin had those tires that were at regulation width when cold but expanded during race conditions. McLaren, Williams and others benefitted from a loophole. Ferrari brought up this point and FIA said they would change their procedure to measure the tires before and after the race (they were only measuring it before the race). FIA plugged the loophole. And so the world went on. Is someone going to go back and delete all those points of the McLaren teams because they cheated.

    What about Renault's mass dampers. Personally, I think it is brilliant technology. Sadly for Renault, the FIA plugged a loophole.
     

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