Renault investigated by FIA !

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Originally Posted by Wilderness

Sorry if I was too subtle for you.

My jest was with regards to the incestuous culture the F1 community has had for many years. One engineer sneezes, and all the teams catch the same cold. Max is fighting a futile battle in this pandemic.

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And that just underscores the point that this type of behavoir has been common place in F1 for decades with no real harm being done to anyone. Teams don't exist in a vacuum and knowledge of competitors stuff is/has always been around in F1 and in the rest of the corporate world.
It is just that Ferrari in their zeal to win-at-all-cost have now opened a pandora's box that does nothing but castigate the entire sport to ridicule. If you look long and hatrd enough, surely you will find that Ferrari too were in possesion of competitors materials and IP over the years. To not think so would be to be naive. Teams have only complained in the most egritious of curcumstances and otherwhise played with a subtle understanding that minor info eventually gets around. Especially with the fluidity of Engineers, mechanics and staff.
Ferrari may have won the battle, but have ultimately caused a World war in doing so, escalating the tensions amongst teams and causing a chain reaction amongst teams based on the verdicts of course helped by the FIA...

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

And therein rests a real problem. With rules being open to interpretation, and penalties being inconsistent, how can fairness be applied consistently for all competitors?

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...Which
has also played a significant role in the absurdity of the whole matter. Max Mosley and his juvenile hatred for RD has in effect brought F1 to this event horizon. He and the cutrrent board need to resign with immediate effect.

It is they who have brought the sport to disrepute and threaten to outright damge it beyond repair. These scandals and decisions do nothing to enamor advertisers, sponsorship, innovation, basic impartiality or even some semopblance of an even playing field.

The way things are goingg, by 2012 the entire series would be run by ferrari engines and customer chasis, with only 12 cars on the grid, as everyone else has left.

The calls for a seperate sereis independant of the overbearing FIA grow stronger everyday. And if Williams,BWM, McClaren, Honda, Toyota, and Renault decided to pursue that breakaway series, I will wholeheartedly support it!

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Originally Posted by truefan72

The calls for a seperate sereis independant of the overbearing FIA grow stronger everyday. And if Williams,BWM, McClaren, Honda, Toyota, and Renault decided to pursue that breakaway series, I will wholeheartedly support it!

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More likely we'll see the car companies start to pull out of F1 for calmer and friendlier waters! :(

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Originally Posted by truefan72

And that just underscores the point that this type of behavoir has been common place in F1 for decades with no real harm being done to anyone. Teams don't exist in a vacuum and knowledge of competitors stuff is/has always been around in F1 and in the rest of the corporate world.
It is just that Ferrari in their zeal to win-at-all-cost have now opened a pandora's box that does nothing but castigate the entire sport to ridicule. If you look long and hatrd enough, surely you will find that Ferrari too were in possesion of competitors materials and IP over the years. To not think so would be to be naive. Teams have only complained in the most egritious of curcumstances and otherwhise played with a subtle understanding that minor info eventually gets around. Especially with the fluidity of Engineers, mechanics and staff.
Ferrari may have won the battle, but have ultimately caused a World war in doing so, escalating the tensions amongst teams and causing a chain reaction amongst teams based on the verdicts of course helped by the FIA...

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Too true. For example, the 1978 Shadow/Arrows rif over the FA1 was resolved by a court, not FISA.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

...Which
has also played a significant role in the absurdity of the whole matter. Max Mosley and his juvenile hatred for RD has in effect brought F1 to this event horizon. He and the cutrrent board need to resign with immediate effect.

It is they who have brought the sport to disrepute and threaten to outright damge it beyond repair. These scandals and decisions do nothing to enamor advertisers, sponsorship, innovation, basic impartiality or even some semopblance of an even playing field.

The way things are goingg, by 2012 the entire series would be run by ferrari engines and customer chasis, with only 12 cars on the grid, as everyone else has left.

The calls for a seperate sereis independant of the overbearing FIA grow stronger everyday. And if Williams,BWM, McClaren, Honda, Toyota, and Renault decided to pursue that breakaway series, I will wholeheartedly support it!

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Bring back GPMA. It's time to shelf Mosley and the Concord Agreement.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

With all respect pass meat issue, it's not really something that everyone knew about.

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Took me a bit by surprise, da kneel, but easily fixed, fortunately!

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Originally Posted by truefan72

The way things are goingg, by 2012 the entire series would be run by ferrari engines and customer chasis, with only 12 cars on the grid, as everyone else has left.

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Interesting point. That's happening soon in another series called A1GP....

Renault has McLaren's information? No surprise there - Alonso seems to communicate with Briatore 'suspiciously much'. :laugh: Renault will be more competitive next year and FA will say again that he has brought 0,6 secs. :D

With those spying scandals the possibility of seeing Spyker as WCC one day is constantly rising! :laugh:

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Originally Posted by jens

Renault has McLaren's information? No surprise there - Alonso seems to communicate with Briatore 'suspiciously much'. :laugh: Renault will be more competitive next year and FA will say again that he has brought 0,6 secs. :D

With those spying scandals the possibility of seeing Spyker as WCC one day is constantly rising! :laugh:

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:laugh:

If Renault are found guilty though and DONT get the same punishment as McLaren did, imagine the calls of "double standards" coming from the McLaren camp

Every team, every year, every boss. One of the main reasons that so much money goes into F1 is because of spying. I don't know why the FIA didn't just sweep it under the carpet, it's like drugs in athletics, never going to be out of the sport.

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Originally Posted by DazzlaF1

:laugh:

If Renault are found guilty though and DONT get the same punishment as McLaren did, imagine the calls of "double standards" coming from the McLaren camp

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sadly that's what McClaren are counting on, and it will never stop

I wish all this stuff would go away, and that the Mcclaren fine be reduced to a nominal amount.
Then have all the teams agree on a pact that all decisions regarding spying etc, be handled in arbitration and only when it is CLEARLY demonstrated that the violationg team gained a competitive advantage and/or CLEARLY used the opponents IP in their construction to a degree that would render the components identical; and with no prior development or evolution proven by the accused team of said part that could indicate their own development of the component.

As it stands right now, all the F1 cars are more similar than dissimilar and am certain contain a good number of almost identical parts.

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Originally Posted by Miguel Sanchez

Every team, every year, every boss. One of the main reasons that so much money goes into F1 is because of spying. I don't know why the FIA didn't just sweep it under the carpet, it's like drugs in athletics, never going to be out of the sport.

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I still don't think this sort of thing is comparable with drugs in other sports. That is a problem specific to those sports and this is a problem specific to F1.

As for this case, who can say? The fact that this thread began by saying, in effect, that Renault are guilty before any investigation is in itself rather depressing. At this stage, we simply don't know. What we can say with all certainty is that spying in one form or another has almost always been a part of F1, albeit to different degrees, and that none of this is any good for the sport no matter how 'enjoyable' some people may find the misfortune of certain teams and individuals.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

sadly that's what McClaren are counting on, and it will never stop

I wish all this stuff would go away, and that the Mcclaren fine be reduced to a nominal amount.
Then have all the teams agree on a pact that all decisions regarding spying etc, be handled in arbitration and only when it is CLEARLY demonstrated that the violationg team gained a competitive advantage and/or CLEARLY used the opponents IP in their construction to a degree that would render the components identical; and with no prior development or evolution proven by the accused team of said part that could indicate their own development of the component.

As it stands right now, all the F1 cars are more similar than dissimilar and am certain contain a good number of almost identical parts.

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Aye, it's not like Spying is a new problem, it's been going on in the F1 paddock for years. But its just when Ferrari are the supposed "victims" that all hell breaks loose it looks like.

I do hope Renault are innocent of the accusations but if they are found guilty they should be given the same punishment as McLaren.

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Originally Posted by VkmSpouge

I do hope Renault are innocent of the accusations but if they are found guilty they should be given the same punishment as McLaren.

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first and foremost it depends on what they are actually guilty off

secondly, it looks like RD and FB had some sort of gentleman's agreement from nearly 2 years ago, which has now only been broken due to the outlandish fine that McClaren got for probably a lesser infraction. Actually talking to each other and coming up with an amicable solution was the way things used to be done. Ferrari unhgappy with the resurgance of McClaren (as this was supposed to be their year) took this whole ussue to a disturbing level.


thirdly, It won't stop at Renault and Mcclaren, trust me,
other maunufactures/teams will be claiming offenses all over the place, no matter how minor and looking for a $100 mill. verdict too. Even if it half that or a quarter of that, it will still be too much for many teams on the paddock.

Thise whole spying issue is going to get much worse before it gets better, and us the fans will end up the losers in the whole affair. The fIA is not showing any strong leadership or m,odifications of their rules to clarify these situations. Instead they seem content on letting these situatiions exhaserbate

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Originally Posted by 93VTEC

HOw come Ferrari is not getting involved. This "McLaren data" could be the "Ferrari data" that McLaren was in possesion of?

The plot thickens.

Perhaps Coughlan was just a middle man, between Ferrari and Renault!

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The McLaren engineer that is supposed to have brought the McLaren data to Renault did quit McLaren last year, they didn't have the Ferrari data yet at that moment.

So why did you feel the need to involve Ferrari in this story? Care to tell us?

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Originally Posted by ioan

There are some holes in their article especially when they say that it wasn't proved that McLaren used Ferrari data, when we all know that their drivers were using Ferrari data during testing.
So yeah a "reliable" and "unbiased" source they are. :s

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That's not entirely true either. They only talked about using the data during testing. For instance the wieght distribution was considered to be so far off of McLaren's that there was no way or no point of running it on the simulator. In any event, they talked about it but never applied it.

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Originally Posted by bontebempo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/moto...ne/7085098.stm

this is getting out of hand and making F1 a laughing stock!

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lol.... F1 will replace racing with dramatic court hearings :mark:

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Originally Posted by raikk

lol.... F1 will replace racing with dramatic court hearings :mark:

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If you think this is bad, ask anybody about the FISA-FOCA war.

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Originally Posted by VkmSpouge

I do hope Renault are innocent of the accusations but if they are found guilty they should be given the same punishment as McLaren.

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Any leakage of data are consequence of dismissing employee, especially a high absorbility driver like Alonso. Giving punishment to team scored nothing in a season isn't commenced is like to give the punishment to person isn't awake.

;)

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Originally Posted by ioan

The McLaren engineer that is supposed to have brought the McLaren data to Renault did quit McLaren last year, they didn't have the Ferrari data yet at that moment.

So why did you feel the need to involve Ferrari in this story? Care to tell us?

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It's the damn Ferrari bashing gene that takes over the common sense center of the brain in some F1 "fans" ;)

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Originally Posted by DazzlaF1

But its just when Ferrari are the supposed "victims" that all hell breaks loose it looks like.

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Or is it just when McLaren are caught "with their hands in the cookie jar" that all hell breaks loose?

Ok, can I remind everyone that the first time around the FIA chose to give McLeran a conditional discharge, and initially let them walk when McLeran claimed to not have used or even attempted to use the Ferrari information? And it wasn't until more evidence and emails that FIA realised they where lied too and decided to throw the book at them?

Also why does everyone throw the $100 million fine around as if that was fact? That figure was the combined fine, and loss of revenues for finishing 1st in the constructor, and as everyone should already know, thanks to Alonso's little prank he pulled on Hamilton during some qualifying pit stops and the subsequent penalty McLeran received for that, they would have finished second making the combined hit on them I believe only $55 Million or so (Not sure if I'll be able to dig up the article I read that in)

Also why do I think that evidence uncovered by italian police should hold a little bit more weight then eveidence produced by a 3rd party detective agency hired by Mcleran?

If this proves to be nothing more then a Mcleran stirring up $hit, then I hope the FIA reconsider banning them for 2008 for bringing the sport into even more disrepute!!!

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Originally Posted by PSfan

Ok, can I remind everyone that the first time around the FIA chose to give McLeran a conditional discharge, and initially let them walk when McLeran claimed to not have used or even attempted to use the Ferrari information? And it wasn't until more evidence and emails that FIA realised they where lied too and decided to throw the book at them?

Also why does everyone throw the $100 million fine around as if that was fact? That figure was the combined fine, and loss of revenues for finishing 1st in the constructor, and as everyone should already know, thanks to Alonso's little prank he pulled on Hamilton during some qualifying pit stops and the subsequent penalty McLeran received for that, they would have finished second making the combined hit on them I believe only $55 Million or so (Not sure if I'll be able to dig up the article I read that in)

Also why do I think that evidence uncovered by italian police should hold a little bit more weight then eveidence produced by a 3rd party detective agency hired by Mcleran?

If this proves to be nothing more then a Mcleran stirring up $hit, then I hope the FIA reconsider banning them for 2008 for bringing the sport into even more disrepute!!!

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The offset on the fine is to stop the penalty being $150m. McLaren have $100m less than they would have had, that is the punishment.

Ferrari asked the Italian prosecutor for permission to use the phone message data, and they refused. Ferrari used it anyway, and McLaren are now suing them in Italy for illegal use of that data.

There is no chance that Renault did not use illegal McLaren data. Also it seems Flav did not tell them, they found out from an engineer they recruited from Renault. And it is serious, F1-Live is saying "One insider told The Independent newspaper: "The amount and depth of the information (found at Renault) makes 'Stepneygate' look like a walk in the park."

So hopefully the hysteria whipped up by Ferrari and Max about the comparatively trivial goings on in McLaren will be brought into a more sensible perspective.

Renault could be in deep trouble, unless Max fudges it for them. In that case, Max could be in deep trouble.

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Originally Posted by passmeatissue

The offset on the fine is to stop the penalty being $150m. McLaren have $100m less than they would have had, that is the punishment.

Ferrari asked the Italian prosecutor for permission to use the phone message data, and they refused. Ferrari used it anyway, and McLaren are now suing them in Italy for illegal use of that data.

There is no chance that Renault did not use illegal McLaren data. Also it seems Flav did not tell them, they found out from an engineer they recruited from Renault. And it is serious, F1-Live is saying "One insider told The Independent newspaper: "The amount and depth of the information (found at Renault) makes 'Stepneygate' look like a walk in the park."

So hopefully the hysteria whipped up by Ferrari and Max about the comparatively trivial goings on in McLaren will be brought into a more sensible perspective.

Renault could be in deep trouble, unless Max fudges it for them. In that case, Max could be in deep trouble.

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So you think cheating should just happen and it's all good?

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Originally Posted by passmeatissue

F1-Live is saying "One insider told The Independent newspaper: "The amount and depth of the information (found at Renault) makes 'Stepneygate' look like a walk in the park."

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Here's the Independent's story.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

So you think cheating should just happen and it's all good?

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Take something I did say, then we can debate it.

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Originally Posted by passmeatissue

Take something I did say, then we can debate it.

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What did McLaren do? What are Renault rumoured to have done? CHEATING. Is that trivial? or OK? No!

Renault gonna go bankrupt with a 100million fine..

how can you combat one of your thousand employee steal information from the work place and sells it to a competitor? well..sacking is the only thing can happen of the employee both side, WHY PUNISHING THE TEAM AS A WHOLE????
this is ridiculous because there going to be toomany childish-moaners going to riseup with such complaints race after race! i bet next year ferrari is going to comeup with saying Ron's engineers were spying on thier garage with high tech surveilance binaculars..therefore uncle max going to deduct points of mclaren team.. then Tororosso boss going to complain that some team nicked his lollypop or taken a picture of his cars and wants to sue them..

each and every team in every sport always lookout for what is going around in the fellow teams and ARE keen to know technical stuffs etc.. none are innocents including ferrari's.. thats the way sport works for long time and it is the team principal to makesure the security of his own teams stuffs by taking responsibility of it than start blaming around others. it is childish.

hehe.. F1 sucks nowdays..

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Originally Posted by rohanweb

Renault gonna go bankrupt with a 100million fine..

how can you combat one of your thousand employee steal information from the work place and sells it to a competitor? well..sacking is the only thing can happen of the employee both side, WHY PUNISHING THE TEAM AS A WHOLE????
this is ridiculous because there going to be toomany childish-moaners going to riseup with such complaints race after race! i bet next year ferrari is going to comeup with saying Ron's engineers were spying on thier garage with high tech surveilance binaculars..therefore uncle max going to deduct points of mclaren team.. then Tororosso boss going to complain that some team nicked his lollypop or taken a picture of his cars and wants to sue them..

each and every team in every sport always lookout for what is going around in the fellow teams and ARE keen to know technical stuffs etc.. none are innocents including ferrari's.. thats the way sport works for long time and it is the team principal to makesure the security of his own teams stuffs by taking responsibility of it than start blaming around others. it is childish.

hehe.. F1 sucks nowdays..

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As has been stated ad nauseum it is NOT solely the responsibility of the team to make sure their data is safe. Of course they have to take all reasonable precautions but at the end of the day it's the responsibility of teams and their employees do not use any data from other teams. As I said before the only way to ensure the data is completely safe would be to seal it in a concrete block and drop it into the marianas trench. Now if you can show me a way of running a team while your data is miles underwater then you're a genius but sadly no team can operate with 100% security and that's a fact. If it's just sour grapes because your team was cheating and did their best not to win the drivers title then that's not my problem or Ferrari's problem.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

What did McLaren do? What are Renault rumoured to have done? CHEATING. Is that trivial? or OK? No!

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Well, there is a level of copying that everyone accepts - photographs, sound recording, debriefing new recruits. So "cheating" is not an on/off thing that starts at zero.

What we know about McLaren's use of Ferrari information is...

There was a 780 page dossier which was a blueprint for a team, but McLaren don't need a blueprint, and there's no evidence that it was used at all.
An email about tyre gas which was immediately poo-poohed by Brdigestone.
Emails about weight distribution which only showed that Ferrari and McLaren cars were completely different in concept, to the point where the simulator couldn't emulate the Ferraris, they were off the scale.
Emails about pitstop plans.
There was a lot text and phone traffic but no-one knows what was said. It couldn't have contained any detailed data, though.
McLaren told some lies at the hearing, trying to deny any wrongdoing at all. They should have admitted what did happen.

This was wrong, clearly, but trivial. There is no evidence that the McLaren car benefitted from this. The 2007 car had already been designed long before, so di Montezemolo's cracks about the McLaren being a Ferrari in disguise were just unsporting off-track hostility. McLaren offered to let the FIA inspect the car, and the FIA didn't want to. Everything else is speculation and you can't issue punishments on that basis.

Renault, by contrast, had at least 7 McLaren-logoed documents on their computer system, and there were several specific parts on their 2007 car which were copied from the McLaren data and used through the season.

So having set the bar at $100m and no contsructors points for what McLaren did, Max is in trouble now to be consistent without losing Renault altogether.

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Originally Posted by rohanweb

Renault gonna go bankrupt with a 100million fine..

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Bollocks, again.

I'm no Renault fan,not F1 nor road cars division. But they are financially stronger than Mercedes.

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Originally Posted by rohanweb

how can you combat one of your thousand employee steal information from the work place and sells it to a competitor? well..sacking is the only thing can happen of the employee both side, WHY PUNISHING THE TEAM AS A WHOLE????

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Because the team works as a WHOLE!

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Originally Posted by passmeatissue

Well, there is a level of copying that everyone accepts - photographs, sound recording, debriefing new recruits. So "cheating" is not an on/off thing that starts at zero.

What we know about McLaren's use of Ferrari information is...

There was a 780 page dossier which was a blueprint for a team, but McLaren don't need a blueprint, and there's no evidence that it was used at all.
An email about tyre gas which was immediately poo-poohed by Brdigestone.
Emails about weight distribution which only showed that Ferrari and McLaren cars were completely different in concept, to the point where the simulator couldn't emulate the Ferraris, they were off the scale.
Emails about pitstop plans.
There was a lot text and phone traffic but no-one knows what was said. It couldn't have contained any detailed data, though.
McLaren told some lies at the hearing, trying to deny any wrongdoing at all. They should have admitted what did happen.

This was wrong, clearly, but trivial. There is no evidence that the McLaren car benefitted from this. The 2007 car had already been designed long before, so di Montezemolo's cracks about the McLaren being a Ferrari in disguise were just unsporting off-track hostility. McLaren offered to let the FIA inspect the car, and the FIA didn't want to. Everything else is speculation and you can't issue punishments on that basis.

Renault, by contrast, had at least 7 McLaren-logoed documents on their computer system, and there were several specific parts on their 2007 car which were copied from the McLaren data and used through the season.

So having set the bar at $100m and no contsructors points for what McLaren did, Max is in trouble now to be consistent without losing Renault altogether.

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I hope you don't mind if I break into your house and steal all your credit cards. I won't buy anything with them of course and I won't benefit from it at all so I expect not to face any sort of prosecution.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I hope you don't mind if I break into your house and steal all your credit cards. I won't buy anything with them of course and I won't benefit from it at all so I expect not to face any sort of prosecution.

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Give it up Daniel.
There is really no use to start it again just to get the same results like in the previous threads.
Unless you have plenty of free time for this! ;)

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I hope you don't mind if I break into your house and steal all your credit cards. I won't buy anything with them of course and I won't benefit from it at all so I expect not to face any sort of prosecution.

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pssst. F1 data is not a credit card ;) .

Much easier to
(a) pretend the other person said something extreme and indefensible, and
(b) concoct some irrelevant analogy

than follow what is going on in F1 and construct a reasoned argument in response to what was actually said.

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Originally Posted by rohanweb

how can you combat one of your thousand employee steal information from the work place and sells it to a competitor? well..sacking is the only thing can happen of the employee both side, WHY PUNISHING THE TEAM AS A WHOLE????

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You seem to have got something really wrong here. You don't punish the team whose employee sells the info. You punish the team that buys the info.

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Originally Posted by passmeatissue

pssst. F1 data is not a credit card ;) .

Much easier to
(a) pretend the other person said something extreme and indefensible, and
(b) concoct some irrelevant analogy

than follow what is going on in F1 and construct a reasoned argument in response to what was actually said.

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WHAT?!?!?!? pass meat issue. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought F1 data was credit cards! Oops! :rolleyes:

Unless entrapment can be proved you do as Tinchote said and prosecute the team who received the information. Of course you can "cheat" by looking at photos but cheating from documents is just not on........

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Originally Posted by Daniel

I hope you don't mind if I break into your house and steal all your credit cards. I won't buy anything with them of course and I won't benefit from it at all so I expect not to face any sort of prosecution.

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No-one broke in and stole anything. Nigel Stepney used the company credit card ;)

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

No-one broke in and stole anything. Nigel Stepney used the company credit card ;)

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I wasn't trying to liken it exactly to what went on ;)

But lets say pass meat issue's significant other gave me their credit card? Should I not just report it straight away?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

WHAT?!?!?!? pass meat issue...

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Daniel, please write/spell usernames correctly...thanks !

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

And therein rests a real problem. With rules being open to interpretation, and penalties being inconsistent, how can fairness be applied consistently for all competitors?

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Ah! Civil Law Vs. Common Law... here we go again!