Jump to content

McLaren Cleared!

Jonbummer

By Jonbummer,
in Motorsports

 Share

Recommended Posts

Jonbummer

Jonbummer

Neutral Newbie

was just waiting for the outcome this whole evening..

and thankfully, the sports and the Silver Arrow are

not penalized by actions of individuals

 

-------------------------

The FIA World Motor Sports Council has decided not to impose any penalty on McLaren. The FIA said after the hearing that it would pursue action against Coughlan and Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney.

 

The governing body said that there was no doubt that the team's chief designer Mike Coughlan had had the leaked information but there was no proof that McLaren had benefited from it.

 

The FIA reserved the right to summon McLaren again if it was suspected that the team had made use of any of the data.

 

The full FIA statement read: "An extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council was held in Paris on 26 July, 2007. The following decision was taken:

 

 

↡ Advertisement
Link to post
Share on other sites
Jonbummer

Jonbummer

Neutral Newbie
  • Author

further reaction from parties & analysis of the situation

tho i gathered there isn;t many McLaren fan here at all..

[rolleyes]

-----

A decision based on facts and realities

 

When Ron Dennis emerged from the six hour hearing of the FIA World Motor Sport Council, he said: "The punishment fits the crime".

 

That said it all.

 

By the letter of the FIA law, McLaren may have been guilty, but the team had been the victim of a rogue employee and in such a circumstance taking action against the team would have needed a great deal of proof of collusion, which clearly did not exist.

 

Indeed, there is an argument - which McLaren may have used in the court - that Ferrari might also have been judged guilty if it had been called before the World Council because the alleged activities of its former employee Nigel Stepney, as these actions might also have been judged to have brought the sport into disrepute.

 

That argument may not have much validity but it was a legal point nonetheless.

 

However, apart from the naive or those with a grudge, there are very few people in F1 circles who ever believed that McLaren would have used any Ferrari data to its advantage. The team has an unblemished reputation. The World Council studied all the available information, including court papers such as Mike Coughlan's affadavit, and thus was in a position to judge fairly and impartially on whether McLaren had done anything wrong.

 

Ferrari director Marco Piccinini, who also sits on the World Council, stood down in this particular case, to avoid a clash of interest.

 

Ferrari has nonetheless responded to the World Council decision with anger, saying that McLaren was "found guilty by the FIA World Council" and that it is "incomprehensible that violating the fundamental principle of sporting honesty does not have, as a logical and inevitable consequence, the application of a sanction". Ferrari goes on to say that the World Council's decision "legitimises dishonest behaviour in Formula 1 and sets a very serious precedent" and is "highly prejudicial to the credibility of the sport".

 

Ferrari says it will continue with the legal actions in Italy and England.

 

These remarks will not go down well with the FIA, although they will do no harm at all as it is not in the interest of the federation to always be in agreement with the Italian team. [thumbsup]

 

There is another question which has yet to be answered: how was it that so much negative publicity about McLaren appeared, primarily in the Italian press, claiming to be based on Coughlan's affadavit. And did this coverage not bring the sport into disrepute far more than what had actually been happening at McLaren?

 

The key question in this issue was who was feeding out information in Italy to create this "trial by media".

 

There are a limited number of possible suspects and you do not need to be good at Cluedo to work out that apart from Coughlan himself and court officials in London (most of whom are probably not regular readers of the Italian dailies), the only people with access to the Coughlan affadavits were McLaren, the FIA and Ferrari. McLaren had nothing to gain from revealing details of the documents and the FIA had more to lose than to gain and that meant that the prime suspect when it came to the leaks was Ferrari. The Italian team says that it did not leak anything to anyone and suggests that the Italian press invented it all.

 

McLaren clearly believes that the stories were deliberately created to damage its reputation.

 

It is not impossible that this might end up with legal action over damage to the reputations of those involved, although this would probably not be a very wise course of action for either party. It does nonetheless highlight the level of bad feeling that now exists between the two teams.

 

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19455.html

 

 

 

McLaren has reacted to the findings of the FIA World Council.

 

"Following an appearance by McLaren today at the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris, a unanimous decision has been taken by the FIA which in McLaren's opinion is very balanced and fair," the team said. "McLaren accepts the that the FIA World Motor Sport Council had no alternative other than to find that there was a purely technical breach by reason of the possession of certain information by one individual at his home, without McLaren's knowledge or authority.

 

"McLaren is delighted that the World Motor Sport Council determined that this information was not used and accordingly imposed no sanction whatsoever on the team. McLaren looks forward to continuing its fight in what is the most exciting Drivers' and Constructors' World Championship in many years."

 

Team boss Ron Dennis said that: "There is no doubt that the past 24 days have been challenging and the tremendous support we have received from our sponsor partners and the public has been much appreciated. Moving forward McLaren wants to re-affirm our long-standing commitment to honesty and integrity and re-state that we believe we have acted correctly throughout. Now, we have Formula 1 World Championships to win. As a result we intend to move on, so as to maintain the focus and commitment required to do exactly that."

 

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19456.html

Link to post
Share on other sites
Relagsingh

Relagsingh

4th Gear

this whole saga is more than meets the eye...

 

duno what that 2 monkeys, coughlan and stepney were up to. in a sensitive sport like F1, how can they afford to slip up? it seems like everything is staged.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Falc

Falc

3rd Gear

Yeah, time to bring this "sensitive" sports to squeaky clean Singapore ... then we see what happen ... hehe ...

Link to post
Share on other sites
Jonbummer

Jonbummer

Neutral Newbie
  • Author

more than meet the eyes?

or someone just trying to pull stunts? [:|]

 

can't we just get some good racing... tsktsk

--------------------

Ferrari gets an appeal

 

Ferrari has been given the right to appeal to the FIA International Court of Appeal, following a letter from Luigi Macaluso, the head of the Italian national sporting authority CSAI, to Max Mosley. Macaluso, who was in the news last week claiming that he was in favour of Ferrari at the World Council but later being revealed as having voted for no punishment for McLaren, said that Ferrari should have the right to an appeal because of the serious nature of the case and the fact that Ferrari was not allowed an active involvement in the recent World Council meeting.

 

This has been granted by the FIA.

 

Max Mosley's letter in reply to Macaluso goes through elements of the case and lists a number of suspicions about McLaren, none of which could be proved at the World Council. Given that Macaluso obviously knows all the details of the case, having sat through six hours of the World Council, it is odd to include all this information in the letter, particularly as all the information listed will be taken up and quoted widely. The FIA says that the details were included to try to explain why the decision was taken given the level of criticism that there has been of the FIA. There is a possibility that this will be interpreted as the FIA feeding the fires around McLaren, which is probably not what the federation needs in a case where it is important to be seen to be scrupulously objective.

 

McLaren has responded angrily to the news.

 

"Following a thoroughly misleading press campaign by Ferrari and pressure from the Automobile Club d

Link to post
Share on other sites
Fortress

Fortress

Clutched
(edited)

Am a Ferrari fan...

 

In this case, it is a competition that the viewers have lost. In my view, MClaren has better drivers than Ferrari. MClaren are having more reliable cars. Ferrari has the faster car. If MClaren wins, it sounds like cheating, in my view, than if they got disqualified, which is rightly so, then Ferrari wins it in the courts.unsure.gifshakehead.gifshakehead.gifshakehead.gifunsure.gifunsure.gif

Edited by Fortress
Link to post
Share on other sites
Jonbummer

Jonbummer

Neutral Newbie
  • Author

sorry, did not understand your view completely

 

but at the moment it does seems the defendant, McLaren,

is been trial by media.

all the info that the media (mainly Italian newspapers) is

being fed with now is likely to be from Ferrari.

one beg the qnn why?

why did Ferrari wants to leak information that 'tarnished' &

guilt McLaren? is the Silver Arrow really gulity?

 

if Ferrari have damning evidence as suggested by them, many

agreed they will already bring all and whoever to court.

a big IF for now..

 

let's be neutral for awhile.

 

also, if Ferrari is only crying WOLF without any sound backing,

which at the end of the days FIA could deem McLaren innocent AGAIN,

can McLaren later in the season counter-sue them for slander and

apparent image tarnish(which could worth millions in sponsorship)?

 

personally, i just like to have all the talks be be done on the

racetracks.

but, we all know, F1 is more than that... but how much more to

individual team is relativel

 

cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...