Here’s the latest ongoings from the never ending battle between the FIA, McLaren and now Renault.
From Autosport: FIA summons Renault over spying charges
With the sport still reeling from McLaren’s exclusion from the Constructors’ Championship for their involvement in a spying affair with Ferrari this year, Renault now find themselves dragged into a similar controversy.
Renault were dragged into the matter when McLaren investigations into their own spy controversy revealed that a former staff member had taken several CDs worth of data to the Renault team.
McLaren’s lawyers duly brought the matter to the attention of the FIA on the eve of their own hearing in September, which prompted the investigation by the sport’s governing body. This has resulted in the decision of the FIA to summon Renault representatives.
A statement issued by the FIA on Thursday said: "Representatives of the Renault F1 Team have been requested to appear before a hearing of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Monaco on Thursday, December 6, 2007.
"The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between September 2006 and October 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, the Renault F1 Team had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, including, but not limited to the layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren F1 car, together with details of the McLaren fuelling system, gear assembly, oil cooling system, hydraulic control system and a novel suspension component used by the 2006 and 2007 McLaren F1 cars."
Renault boss Flavio Briatore told Gazzetta dello Sport in September that he was confident the team would not be found to have done anything wrong, having cooperated fully with the FIA investigation.
"We told the FIA what we had, so there’s no problem," said Briatore. "I don’t know what Dennis refers to, he’s throwing stones a bit everywhere. We are calm, no problem at all."
On the 6th September 2007 it came to our attention that an engineer (Mr Phil Mackereth) who joined the team from McLaren in Sept 2006 had brought with him some information that was considered to be proprietary to McLaren. This information was contained on old style floppy discs and included copies of some McLaren engineering drawings and some technical spreadsheets….As soon as the situation was brought to the attention of the team’s technical management, the following actions were taken:
The information was completely cleansed from the team’s computer systems and a formal investigation was started. We promptly informed McLaren of the situation and immediately after the FIA. Since then we have constantly and regularly kept McLaren and the FIA informed on all relevant findings.
Mr Mackereth was immediately suspended from his position. The original floppy discs were impounded and sent to our solicitors for return to McLaren.
Our formal investigation showed that early in his employment with Renault Mr Mackereth made some of our engineers aware of parts of this information in the form of a few reduced scale engineering drawings. These drawings covered four basic systems as used by McLaren and were: the internal layout of the fuel tank, the basic layout of the gear clusters, a tuned mass damper and a suspension damper.
Subsequent witness statements from the engineers involved have categorically stated that having been briefly shown these drawings, none of this information was used to influence design decisions relating to the Renault car. In the particular case of the tuned mass damper, these had already been deemed illegal by the FIA and therefore the drawing was of no value.
The suspension damper drawing hinted that the McLaren design might be similarly considered illegal and a subsequent clarification from the FIA confirmed this based upon our crude interpretation of the concept.
ING Renault F1 Team have co-operated fully with McLaren and the FIA in this matter to the extent that the team has invited McLaren’s independent experts to come and assess the team’s computer systems and inspect the cars and the design records, to demonstrate that this unfortunate incident has not in anyway influenced the design of the cars.
ING Renault F1 Team have acted with complete transparency towards McLaren and the FIA, being proactive in solving this matter and we are fully confident in the judgment of the World Council.
Over 15 Renault men involved in spy case:
Autosport.com understands that Renault and McLaren’s investigations have revealed that more than 15 engineers in
total examined the information from McLaren, which included details on the 2007 car. It is believed each of these has confirmed the fact in writing.
Sources have suggested that the engineers are not just junior staff members, but also include head of vehicle performance and R&D, deputy technical director, deputy chief designer and chief designer Tim Densham.
The extent of knowledge within Renault about the McLaren information mirrors similar claims surrounding the McLaren/Ferrari case, where the depth of the knowledge about Ferrari secrets extended well beyond just chief designer Mike Coughlan.
Evenstar ~ Briatore is a very silly man. He thinks Renault should be able to get away with it because they opened their mouths about it first? This pretty much a copy of McLaren’s case – information of another team is brought and spread withinthe team, however none of the information has been used on the cars, they say. Infact, it was only McLaren’s chief designer Mike Coughlan, Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa who were conversing and messing around with Ferrari information – it was not proved that more McLaren staff were aware of it, nor was it proved they cheated with their cars. Yet, they were disqualified from this year’s constructor championship and furthemore punished with the biggest fine in motorsport’s history. So, what exactly were McLaren punished for again? Possesing Ferrari property. If Renault are not punished in a simlar fashion or worse then McLaren have no choice but to take this matter further, because this time over 15 people within the Renault team were aware of McLaren information, far more than what McLaren were proved.
If McLaren’s car for next season is to be inspected, then so should Renault’s. And Renault should be fined and disqualified all the same. But seeing as how the FIA like to use double standards, you can imagine they won’t punish Renault as harsh as McLaren because the season is over and Ferrari were not rivals with the French team. They should really…afterall, it was Renault who whupped Ferrari’s butt first in 2005 and 2006, they must be punished for that! (excuse the irony).
On the other hand, we have Damon Hill saying the latest spy saga could damage F1 which is quite true if it hasn’t already, yet the FIA hit back at Hill’s claims because they think it’s okay as they haven’t received any complaints. It’s absolutely ridiculous. There is obviously a fundamental problem within the teams understanding of the rules or don’t realise the potential harm, like we have Renault literally boasting about it and feeling they should be unpunished and McLaren being completely victimised and penalised heavily for it – or does the problem lies within the FIA? Take your pick.
FUCK ISRAEL 