Ferrari/McLaren Espionage Story [merged]

[William Hunt]

You'll have to translate them yourselves (to long and have little time right now):
http://www.repubblica.it/2007/03/mot...i-esposto.html
http://www.gazzetta.it/Motori/Formul...tto_2206.shtml

They say it's about sabotage.

On a Belgian site they also talked about sabotage. I find that hard to believe but there's certainly something going on. Stepney was not happy with the fact that he wasn't promoted after Brawn left, and he was rumoured to be heading to another team, possibly Honda (Brawn was also linked to Honda).

On a delicate matter such as this we will have to wait and see what is really going on here instead of guessing.

[gshevlin]

here we go again

The good old gossip section goes faster than any car I know

Besides, looking at the Toyota, if he had been accepting the brown bags, I think Toyota should sue him for breach of contract

Er, not really. Just because you receive a rival's design and can build a copy of it does not mean that you understand it. The previous espionage incident involving Toyota F1 concerned the copying of large parts of the design of the Ferrari F2002 on the 2003 Toyota car. That car was not especially competitive either, which probably means that Toyota either did not copy it properly and/or did not understand how it worked in the first place. Exactly the same thing heppened in the late 1970's when Lotus pioneered ground effect in F1. In 1979 just about every team copied the Lotus, but the only team that succeeded was Williams with the FW07 (and even Lotus outsmarted themselves that year).

Repeat after me: Copying is not Understanding...

[donKey jote]

They say it's about sabotage.

Apparently a strange substance was found in their tanks before monaco

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/depor...lpepudep_6/Tes

[ioan]

Some mysterious powder, that is being analyzed at the moment.

[Sleeper]

This may help to shed some light on the subject, though not much as it appears no one is saying much. http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=39737

[Valve Bounce]

.
But why should he sell infos to other teams? I suppose it wasn't just about the money.

I am not suggesting at all that this concerns Nigel.

But to answer your question, depending on what you sell, especially Black Box secrets, details of new seamless change transmission designs and so on, the returns could be worth ginormous gazillions.

Then, also of course, if a team had a dodgy fuel tank with secret compartments and this particular team could do well by running underweight during quals and first and second stints, and this information could be sold to a rival who would then pass such information onto the FIA, then yeah!! this could be a reason why some mechanics who is fired by this team would want to pass on this information. Not that I am suggesting such a thing could possibly happen in F1, mind you.

[mstillhere]

I don't want to sound like I am this genious or anything, but if we analize what papers are saying, this guy, Nigel, when nobody was around, walks towards the cars with a bag containing a mysterious powder in his hands. He dumps it in the tanks of these two cars, while is doing that, some of the powder falls around the cars and on the floor and after he's done...................HE DOES NOT CLEAN UP THE MESS????? How about leaving your business card behind? I am telling you, if he does not get arrested for damaging private property he should be arrested for STUPIDITY. That's quiete the plan. I want to sabotage these two cars but I'll leave some traces around, so that they can figure this out???????????????????? I don't get it.
OR if that's what really happend, they should arrest the Ferrari mechanics for stupidity, for seing this stuff around and not figuring it out.

PS Nigel Stepney has been notified by the SWA (Saboteur World Association) that he has been stripped of his membership and advised him to return/trash his online earned degree and get one from a real college.

[Valve Bounce]

When you read about this in the Bild, please give me the link. Ta!!

[Ian McC]

Bizarre to put it mildly! Well you get everything else in F1 so why not spying

[ioan]

Attorney rules out sabotage.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/60078