Ferrari/McLaren Espionage Story [merged]

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Originally Posted by Gannex

7) Ferrari's criminal complaint to the Italian authorities specified Stepney's wrongdoing and was judged by the police and the Modena District Attorney's office to be serious enough and plausible enough to warrant searching Stepney's apartment.
8) The search of Stepney's apartment yielded evidence sufficient to convince the Italian authorities to persist in their criminal proceedings against Stepney.
9) Stepney claimed that when the story broke he was on holiday, which Ferrari well knew, because he had booked the holiday through the Ferrari travel office.
10) Stepney did not book his "holiday" through the Ferrari travel office, according to employees in that office.
11) McLaren say that only one hour elapsed between them learning that Coughlan had the documents and them informing Ferrari that Coughlan had the documents.
12) The documents were copied on or about the 2nd or 3rd of May 2007.

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Thanks Gannex, this looks better! ;)

BTW it seems that even if todays hearing was canceled, the legal action against Coughlan will continue.
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpa...s_art_id=32103

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Originally Posted by Gannex

11) McLaren say that only one hour elapsed between them learning that Coughlan had the documents and them informing Ferrari that Coughlan had the documents.

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When was that? I havent paid too much attention to this saga yet, but wasnt it Ferrari who started it off by making an urgent application to the High Court and after that Coughlans house was searched and the 780 pages of material found?

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Originally Posted by ioan

BTW it seems that even if todays hearing was canceled, the legal action against Coughlan will continue.
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpa...s_art_id=32103

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No, Coughlan is pretty much free now. Ferraris main priority clearly is Stepney now.

Looking at the link pitpass had about the copier shop, it said that Trudy Coughlan worked for Tyrell, didn't that become BAR an then Honda?
Does she work for Honda's F1 team?

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Originally Posted by Ian McC

This is getting silly beyond belief, McLaren lay their hands on these secret documents which they would not want anyone to know they had so they send someones wife to go photocopy them in a store?

Christ on a bike, I can't see how they could take this seriously?

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There you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diK3k_59CGw

McLaren probably sold the photocopier...

The facts seem to indicate that Coughlan did all this on his own... and it wasn´t a task part of his job.
I'm sure McLaren stole those documents and sent Coughlan´s wife to a shop to photocopy them...

But there´s no point to this... It doesn´t matter how obvious it will get. Ferrari and their fans don´t care for that... We could see before that they don´t care how they win.

There are some here who think McLaren should be punished even if it's proven that Coughlan acted alone because somebody else might have sneaked a peek

I think the photocopier guy should be put in jail too... He saw the documents too. Maybe he´s working for a third team... or maybe he´s Elvis

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Originally Posted by Garry Walker

No, Coughlan is pretty much free now. Ferraris main priority clearly is Stepney now.

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Unfortunately for Coughlan, he is far from free at this point. All that has happened is that Ferrari have agreed not to turn over Coughlan's affidavit to the Italian prosecutors. This does not preclude the Italians from bringing criminal charges against Coughlan at a later date, should they see fit to do so, and we know that Ferrari is continuing its civil action against Coughlan in the English courts.

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Originally Posted by Gannex

Unfortunately for Coughlan, he is far from free at this point. All that has happened is that Ferrari have agreed not to turn over Coughlan's affidavit to the Italian prosecutors. This does not preclude the Italians from bringing criminal charges against Coughlan at a later date, should they see fit to do so, and we know that Ferrari is continuing its civil action against Coughlan in the English courts.

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And this is fairly normal I would say, after all the guy was doing something wrong.

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Originally Posted by Gannex

Unfortunately for Coughlan, he is far from free at this point. All that has happened is that Ferrari have agreed not to turn over Coughlan's affidavit to the Italian prosecutors. This does not preclude the Italians from bringing criminal charges against Coughlan at a later date, should they see fit to do so, and we know that Ferrari is continuing its civil action against Coughlan in the English courts.

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Yes, you are right. I should have read the news from autosport more carefully.

Thanks for adding to the picture Gannex :up: Just one thing about a couple of your points:

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Originally Posted by Gannex

9) Stepney claimed that when the story broke he was on holiday, which Ferrari well knew, because he had booked the holiday through the Ferrari travel office.
10) Stepney did not book his "holiday" through the Ferrari travel office, according to employees in that office.

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Stepney may not have formally booked the holiday through the Ferrari travel office but according to his statement:

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"I called Jean Todt to say I was going on holiday to the Philippines - I'd filled in the relevant form but it was on my desk and I hadn't handed it in - and wouldn't be coming back until this was all sorted out."

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So Jean Todt knew where he was.

By implication McLaren are being accused of wrongdoing in this case but before there was even a suggestion that they had any kind of involvement there is the whole issue of the Stepney/Ferrari situation.

Stepney has made his views quite clear:

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"I told Jean Todt I didn't want to travel any more. I wanted to sit back and consider the future. Ferrari took that badly...I began to feel like I was some sort of traitor, just because I no longer wanted to travel...whenever I discussed anything with people in the factory in the course of doing my job, it got fed back to senior management. People became scared to talk to me...I categorically deny that any technical information passed between Mike and I at any time...something is happening inside Ferrari...I was accused by Mario Almondo of taking some drawings. I had them in my possession legitimately because I needed them for work on the simulator, but it was reported to him by the drawing office that I had them. I got the papers and threw them on Almondo's desk. The next day they were back on mine!...Ferrari is terrified that what I have in my mind is valuable. I guess I know where the bodies are buried from the last ten years; and there were a lot of controversies in that time."

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In any legal case wouldn't the lawyers be looking at the truth, or otherwise, of Stepney's statement and asking what motives anyone has for discrediting him?

It has all the makings of a first class thriller, and involving F1's principal rivals makes it a blockbuster :eek: