I think this is all a plan by Spyker to nab the key personal from various teams.
Get them framed for crimes they didn't commit, and then when no one else wants them, hire them cheap and build a top team.
Just you watch...
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I think this is all a plan by Spyker to nab the key personal from various teams.
Get them framed for crimes they didn't commit, and then when no one else wants them, hire them cheap and build a top team.
Just you watch...
hilarious... You are a funny boyQuote:
Originally Posted by ICKE
I like a lot the way you think... They shouldn't allow them to compete at Silverstone... I guess they are guilty until they prove the contrary
whatever the outcome, the excuse was found.
i was right about this one... there's already a thread going on where people start punishing McLaren really hard because they've stolen a ferrari and painted like a mirrorQuote:
Originally Posted by eu
I know what McLaren took from ferrari... vodafone... OMG
The fact that Mclaren sacked their technical director at moments notice tells us that they probably knew what was going on. They had no defensive response, straight dismissal.
However I dont expect them to be punished.
:s hock: Spys!... they're everywhere! :uhoh:
:p :
I'm not going to jump to conclusions that these secrets turned McLaren's fortune around magically, but I'm also not stupid enough to think that nobody at McLaren saw the documents except the single person mentioned!! Nobody steals information and just holds onto it for his own enjoyment! It will be up to the investigators to see how far this has gone within the organizations. I am very curious as to exactly what type of info was exchanged. If there is high-level involvement in this, I would expect to see RD sell his shares quickly and make an exit from the team.
been around motorsport for a while, have you?Quote:
Originally Posted by ICKE
don't be so innocent. what do you think this is?
put the dummy back in before ioan reads your post and hits the rev limiter.
the really curious thing is that very little raw data is applicable to non-source teams anyway.
apart from the teams sharing a major component or two (eg, toyota and williams, honda and aguri, renault and RBR) nobody uses common parts, so there's no baseline. none of it makes any sense on any car other than the one the data is gleaned from.
even aero is not immune. first, you need to have a good, pure chassis setup. then you need aero that works WITH that setup.
but - and here's the fun bit - it only works with THAT setup.
you can take ideas and reapply them to your own chassis, your own braking system, your own heat loads, your own lubricant viscosity, your own carbon shear rate etc.
but it's not like touring cars or F3 or GP2 where these things are directly applicable.
Even tyre info spying is so common that all the team spies talk to each other to make sure they've noted the right specifications etc.
please come down off the high horse.
Has McLaren benefited? maybe. did McLaren know approximately? Maybe. did McLaren know exactly? seriously doubt it.
and you could ask and receive the same answers for every team on the grid.
don't worry for me! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mickey T
I'll sit and wait patiently. :p :
:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by ICKE
Suspended not sacked, so it only tells us you didn't read it properly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ICKE
They should round up all the McLaren cars, and burn them under a cross by men wearing pointed head caps and hoods. That'll teach anyone who wants to engage in espionage in the future to beat the red cars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
For once I give you the :up: ! :D
Yrah!! but Ferrari forgot to remove the all important sim card, and all teh information was stored on the sim card. I know because I read all about this in today's newspaper - there were pages of this about sim cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by eu
Oh yes!! then there is the laptop. That will provide a fountain of information from the e-mails alone, not to mention the guff that guys have posted in this forum.
I'm just wondering at what stage this thread will link this guy to the silly buggers who drove the jeep through the glasgow airport glass door. They must be working real hard on those sim cards. :rolleyes:
I've been saying Ron Dennis is the devil for years! But would anybody listen to me? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Valve Bounce
I somehow think that the 19000rpm rev-limiter would have a greater effect on McLaren's reliability than an unknown component which we all seem to be jumping up and down about!
Don't worry about Mc Laren stealing Vodafone, soon the McLarens will be leaving Europe again and so will be out of the coverage area, so probably won't work until getting back to Europe ;)
You can't be so sure about that, I may be an exception.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrPonx
http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=39889Quote:
The McLaren engineer at the centre of the espionage saga that has rocked Formula 1 is believed to be the team’s erstwhile chief designer Mike Coughlan.
McLaren announced on Tuesday that it had suspended a senior member of its technical staff after learning that he had received classified information from a Ferrari employee at the end of April.
The Woking squad did not identify the individual, but reports in the British and Italian media have named Coughlan, who worked closely with Nigel Stepney at Benetton and Ferrari in the 1990s.
Stepney, a longstanding Ferrari employee, is currently being investigated by the public prosecution office in Modena, Italy, after the Maranello team lodged a formal complaint last month.
On Tuesday morning Ferrari announced that it had dismissed Stepney after conducting its own internal inquiry into his actions.
The team later confirmed that it instigated legal action in England against the McLaren engineer and obtained a warrant for a search of his property.
That evidence came to light after a police search of Coughlan’s house uncovered documents allegedly belonging to Ferrari.
In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, the Italian team said: “Ferrari announces it has recently presented a case against Nigel Stepney and an engineer from the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team with the Modena Tribunal, concerning the theft of technical information.
“Furthermore, legal action has been instigated in England and a search warrant has been issued concerning the engineer. This produced a positive outcome.
“Ferrari reserves the right to consider all implications, be they criminal, civil or of any other nature, according to the applicable laws.”
Stepney, who is on holiday in the Philippines, has maintained his innocence and claims that he is the victim of a dirty tricks campaign.
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malllen
However this will cast a lot of doubt on the McLaren team, after all it's their chief designer we are talking about.
So that makes it all OK?????Quote:
Originally Posted by Mickey T
End of April remember, their car was already fully designed and racing by then.
But they will continue to develop it the whole season! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
For me, this explains what happened after Spain. Stepney sabotaged Ferrari and gave some hints to McLaren.
Disgusting silver cars. And Macca fans call Ferrari cheaters. Macca are the true cheaters.
I hope that they are given points deduction, like in NASCAR.
this is going to run and run this story.
at the moment, we have to stress that these are allergations that are strongly refuted by those accused. we do not even know what the alledged material was or what it pertained to.
What we do know is that Ferrari have their knickers in a twist about something. I simply refuse to believe that they would have taken these steps without some sort of substantial proof. McLaren also wouldn't have stepped down Mike unless there was a strong suspicion there was some substance to this.
what I find more amazing though is that 2 exceptionally intelligent men would leave a f*cking paper trail behind. it is frankly astonishing!! this story gets stranger by the minute.
so, on the one hand, we have Ferrari claiming they have a smoking gun and on the other we have, if its true, unbeliveable gross stupidity.
I suggest we just see how this plays out before assuming anything at the moment.
now, what if it is true? well, I dont see that the FIA can punish McLaren if it was one individual responsible otherwise you would set a worrying president. if though, it looks like Mike wasn't acting alone then I dont see that they would have any option.
this is going to be the biggest controvacy since Schumacher was proven to have TC on his car. hopefully the FIA will be a little more rigid this time in their judgement should there be a case to answer.
I don't think the FIA can step in and punish until this whole mess has wound its way through the justice system. It wouldn't really be appropriate for them to do anything until then. The teams are independent commercial companies over which the FIA can only inforce the sporting and technical regulations of the championship. They can't get involved in telling the teams how to run their businesses and I doubt they can punish a team from gonig about its business in a way they disagree with.
Yes the charges are very serious and put F1 in a bad light but I'm not sure what they can do about it. And I dare say the FIA is a lot less upset about this than Mercedes and Vodafone are.
I don't think the way either Ferrari or McLaren have acted proves anything either way. I think you need to be seen to be whiter than white considering how serious the allegations are. These teams have to convince huge corporations to part with 10's of millions of dollars inorder to allow them to go racing. And those huge corporations are very protective of their brands and image.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flat.tyres
I'd think the stumbling block that would prevent McLaren being penalised here is Stepney... provided he did actually "sabotage" the Ferrari cars.
I think the two threads should be merged.
This is totally stupid! Not letting Mclaren race what the hell?
First of all no one knows if this is even true, Second, can you think of the damage it would do to take all of Macca's points off them because of one man.
To spoil the world championship and for sure annoy many fans so much that already the farce that is formula one will go down the pan for ever.
Lets say for instance a guy from a truck company gave another information about new wheels or somthing. What do you do take all the earnings off the company that recieved it.
utter rubbish, punish the man not the team, who have been working so hard slaving away night and day. Dont punish Lewis and Alonso who have been risking there lives for race wins.
Just a thought here: Ferreri have this super dooper seamless gear change transmission - could this have anything to do with that?
OK, maybe not :(
How can Ron be the devil? The DEVIL is red, isnt it?
The FIA have done that before -Quote:
To spoil the world championship and for sure annoy many fans so much that already the farce that is formula one will go down the pan for ever.
In 1995 the FIA went to great lengths embarrassing the Toyota works team by banning them from the WRC until 1998 because they were exceeding the power limit imposed on WRC-spec cars. They were categorically cheating, and only got caught nearing the final round of what was a tumultuous season of the WRC (It had only 8 rounds in 1995). At that point in the championship the Toyota Celica's were leading both titles and were the reigning WRC champions.
Given the facts of this saga get pretty messy, the evidence is less conclusive and I don't think either team will be punished by the FIA, bar maybe a huge fine.
However as proven by the point above, the FIA have the power to remove the team and can do so if they deem necessary in this case. Though if I was a tifosi at this time, I wouldn't hold my breath.
well.. Ferrari won't let this go easily..
Quote:
Meanwhile, with McLaren admitting that 'a senior member of its technical organisation personally received a package of technical information from a Ferrari employee at the end of April', The Guardian reports that 'Ferrari believe that the improvement in McLaren's performance after the Spanish Grand Prix on May 13 is consistent with the apparent leaks at the end of April.'
Oh dear, this could get messy :mark:
The man is part of the team and has a huge influence on it, given his position.Quote:
Originally Posted by savage86
As for the risking their life part, you must be kidding, I mean which driver isn't risking his life in F1?! :rolleyes:
For now we only know (and it was proved when the police searched his home!) that McLaren's chief designer received top secret material from a Ferrari employee. In the mean time the Ferrari employee (Stepney) was sacked by Ferrari for not yet disclosed reasons. Until there is no evidence that McLaren benefited in any way from those informations I can not say they are at fault, although I can't see what those infos were good for anything else.
Do you all remember that we talked about that misterious wind tunnel faileure Ferrari suffered about2 months ago? What if they discovered that it was Stepney's hand in it???
Just a thought here: is there any rule in the FIA against spying?
Maybe not, but what about bringing the sport into disrepute??? :p :Quote:
Originally Posted by Valve Bounce
There's one about intellectual property (the one which caused everyone to blow up because of the customer car debate earlier this year) which would be pretty telling if the parties concerned can find the right information.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valve Bounce
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valve Bounce
McLaren has one, RBR has one, Williams has one and Toyota uses the Williams version because it couldn't make its own seamless shift work. honda and super aguri have it, too.
Gazzetta is reporting that the package contained the whole design for F2007.
This is going to be mega.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malllen
toyota were punished for a very blatant piece of cheating. the FIA knew it was going on by ALL teams, announced at which round they would check it and toyota was the only team that didn't remove their trick.
they engineered (a beautifully engineered thing it was, too) a bypass of the air-inlet restrictor that sat perfectly in position at idle and low rpm, but sprung open at wider throttle openings. unfortunately for them, one of the spanners blipped the throttle while a scrutineer had his head under the bonnet and they caught them.
they got banned because it was a systematic cheat to bypass not only the restrictor, but an FIA rule - and arrogantly refused to remove it even when it knew it would be checked.
this is a very different story. when informed by investigators, McLaren's management instantly moved to suspend, then sack, the employee in question. i don't know what more they were supposed to do to make some people happy. Hand back the points?
there's a strange smell to all of this. Stepney books his holiday through the Ferrari agency at Ferrari's suggestion, then Ferrari says it has no idea where stepney is. they find a mystery powder at Stepney's house after he's gone overseas on a Ferrari-suggested holiday. They find confidential ferrari paperwork in his house.
I've spoken to a lot of ferrari employees about this and, from race mechanic to senior engineer, they're all fairly perplexed about it and all regard it as out of character and a management issue, not a team issue.
given that this thread links with the stepney thread, not a bad idea to put them together.
either way, i'd hate to see this overshadow an intriguing championship as it unfolds...