The Coughlan Affidavit

I think your assessement is correct.

 

JEAN TODT: “INCOMPRENSIBILE” - For Jean Todt, interviewed by the Tg1 TV station, the decision of the Fia is incomprensibile. “If one is guilty he must be punished, instead no, there is nothing here; therefore if the McLaren team has been judged guilty, it is incomprensibile to us that there has not been any sanctions for violating the fundamental principle of honesty”.
The CEO of Ferrari emphasizes that “we consider this decision prejudicial for the credibility of our sport ”. On the possibility of finding other proof of the culpability of the anglo-german team", he adds, “there is a risk for the McLaren team of exclusion from the 2007 and also the 2008 championship, but we will see what happens ahead”.

 

These are the poll results from the most important italian sport newspaper "La Gazzetta dello Sport" current at this time:

Questions asked

1) It`s a scandal, now everyone will feel authorized to cheat...............66.5%

2) It`s a Pontius Pilatus decision, but they should have at least
assessed a monetary penalty.........................................................23.6%

3) It`s a right decision as there was no proof that MC used the info.......9.9%


Total votes tallied were 17,500

 

FERRARI FUME AT RULING
Ferrari have launched a scathing attack on the World Motor Sport Council, claiming their failure to penalise McLaren "legitimises dishonest behaviour."

The furious Maranello team feel the WMSC have set "a very serious precedent," and find it "incomprehensible" McLaren have not been punished for 'fraudulent conduct'.

Following an extraordinary meeting of the WMSC in Paris, McLaren were found guilty of being in possession of confidential documents belonging to Ferrari, yet due to "insufficient evidence" no sanction was imposed.

That has left Ferrari officials raging, and within two hours they issued a damning statement, condemning the WMSC and their bitter rivals.

It read: "Ferrari...find it incomprehensible that violating the fundamental principle of sporting honesty does not have, as a logical and inevitable consequence, the application of a sanction.

"Thursday's decision legitimises dishonest behaviour in Formula One and sets a very serious precedent.

"The decision of the World Council signifies that possession, knowledge at the very highest level and use of highly confidential information acquired in an illicit manner, and the acquiring of confidential information over the course of several months, represent violations which do not carry any punishment.

"The fact McLaren were in possession of such information was discovered totally by accident and, but for this, the team would continue to have it.

"This is all the more serious as it has occurred in a sport like Formula One in which small details make all the difference. Ferrari feel this is highly prejudicial to the credibility of the sport. We will continue with the legal action under way within the Italian criminal justice system, and in the civil court in England."

Ferrari's argument is McLaren did not simply have details relating to the design of the car, but also fundamental basics such as tyre pressures, fuel loads, budgets - all relevant to running a team.

 

Decision was an elegant device to escape from a potentially tricky situation, writes Alan Henry

Friday July 27, 2007
The Guardian


Yesterday's verdict of the FIA world motor sport council satisfied neither of the two key protagonists involved in an increasingly acrimonious argument. It left the Ferrari team infuriated after their key rivals McLaren escaped apparently without sanction. On the other hand, it was clear that McLaren had been granted only conditional absolution after it was established that they had been in possession of confidential Ferrari drawings and technical data.
Sir Jackie Stewart felt the verdict was unsatisfactory. "In truth I would have to say that I am sorry this whole issue ever arose," said the retired triple formula one world champion. "I think it is most unfortunate for McLaren that the verdict was not one of not guilty but what amounted to an acquittal on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

If new evidence were to emerge to suggest that they have in fact used technical information acquired by their disgraced chief designer, Mike Coughlan, then they could find themselves back in front of the FIA world motor sport council facing the prospect of being disqualified not only from this year's world championship but next year's too.
On the face of it yesterday's decision not to apply a penalty to the McLaren team was an elegant device to escape from a potentially very tricky situation. Had McLaren been excluded from the 2007 world championship, or even suspended from a few races, the commercial damage that might have been done to one of the sport's highest profile, blue chip operations would have been incalculable.

Under the circumstances, and bearing in mind that the threshold of proof required to convict McLaren was extremely high, the FIA erred on the side of caution and decided not to apply the most draconian penalty at its disposal.

Stewart added: "Personally I think the whole affair has been extremely negative for formula one but, having said that, I would have to say that I believe Ron [Dennis] when he says that none of the information illegally acquired found its way into the McLaren factory.

"At the end of the day we know that the chief executive and senior management are responsible for their employees under the rules of corporate governance but, if one individual is operating independently outside his own remit, then it is right that such clandestine behaviour should be punished on an individual basis."

Certainly yesterday's FIA verdict, for all the outcry from Ferrari, will be interpreted by many observers as proving beyond doubt that the sport's governing body in no way shows partiality towards the famous Italian team, as has been alleged by many observers in the past.

More crucially, however, it will stir the enduring rivalry and resentment which has existed between McLaren and Ferrari for much of the past decade, part of which is the result of ingrained professional jealousy and part down to the historic reality that both teams have been implacable, wheel-to-wheel rivals for much of that time.

The ultimate embodiment of this high-speed rivalry is represented by a front-wing endplate from one of the McLaren-Mercedes formula one cars which claims pride of place in the office of their chief operating officer, Martin Whitmarsh, and their company's technical headquarters near Woking.

The endplate, from Mika Hakkinen's car in the 2000 Belgian grand prix, bears the imprint of a tyre sidewall from Michael Schumacher's Ferrari with which the Finn was embroiled in a wheel-to-wheel 200mph battle for victory on this epic circuit through the Ardennes forest.

At the end of the afternoon Hakkinen emerged the winner but after the race the two men stood poignantly alone in the scrutineering area while the Finnish driver outlined what he felt were his rival's manifest professional shortcomings.

In a sense that feeling of rivalry and resentment remains as indelible as that tyre mark on the front-wing endplate. Yesterday's decision of the FIA world motor sport council will have simply poured more high-octane fuel on to these troubled waters.

 

This comment is from Ed Gorman, who has the inside track in F1.

The most striking thing about the dramatic events unfolding in Paris was the furious reaction by Ferrari to McLaren's unexpected let-off by the FIA's World Motor Sport Council.

The decision not to penalise the Anglo-German team incensed Ferrari, which described the FIA's investigation and decision as "incomprehensible". The Scuderia argued that the FIA had, in effect, "legitimised dishonest behaviour in Formula 1" and that it had set "a very dangerous precedent".

What is clear is that the Italians had been fully expecting McLaren to feel the full force of the FIA's wrath. The belief in Maranello was that the admission by McLaren that Mike Coughlan, its chief designer, had received a large dossier of secret Ferrari technical information alone made some sort of sanctions inevitable.

From McLaren's point of view the decision reached in Paris was almost the best they could have hoped for. Under the Formula 1 rules of collective responsibility, it could have faced penalties ranging from a large fine to being thrown out of the championship.

But the FIA seems to have accepted the argument of Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal, that his team had done nothing wrong and that none of Ferrari's technical secrets had found their way on to McLaren's race cars.

However, the FIA appears to have left what amounts to a Sword of Damocles hanging over McLaren with its assertion that if any evidence does emerge in the future that the Ferrari technical data has been misused then the Woking-based team could be thrown out not only of this year's championship, but next year's as well.

This "suspended sentence" is likely to have the effect of encouraging Ferrari more than ever to try and find the evidence to achieve what they failed to do in Paris.

 

LUCA DI MONTEZEMOLO today speaking to all the world Ferrari fans said one sentence "This story does not finish here!".

 

MILAN, 27 July 2007

JEAN TODT reveals " The 9th of June we got together with McL to improve our relations: in the meantime, they were aware and they had our technical information. The FIA did not allow us to present our case. We were not given the possibility to actively intervene liked we should have ”.

The day after the decision of the World-wide Council of the Fia, Jean Todt cannot hide the bitterness and the disappointment of how it all concluded: “I have only been able to ask some questions and to answer others - to accusation - but we have not been able to introduce our arguments and the documents to support these. The one yesterday, however, was not an audience in a court but a world-wide board meeting of the Fia, where the McLaren was called to answer some accusations and to which we were only present in an observatory capacity. This decision remains a very disappointing and amazing one. It is not acceptable to create a precedent in an important case such as this one, in which the ascertained fault of a serious violation of a fundamental principle of the honesty of the sport does not automatically result in a sanction. From our part we will go proceed with the legal actions in course in Italy and in England and we do not exclude to undertake other legal actions”.

DISREGARDED AGREEMENT - the general executive manager of the Ferrari then reveals some backstage of the spy story: on one side, in fact, the McLaren was asking Ferrari to resolve the problems whitin the family and from the other it knew that its employee had secret Ferrari information. “A few weeks after the race in Melbourne, in occasion of a meeting with them, - Todt explains - McLaren proposed to me to reach an agreement in order to establish better relationships between the two teams and avoid respective denunciations to the sport authority. I answered that it was impossible to believe them, since in the past they, on their part, had disregarded all of the previous ones. There were further discussions and, wanting to believe that it was possible, I consented to approve this agreement on the 9th of June. For all that period and also after - the CEO of Ferrari adds - the McLaren was perfectly aware not only of the email sent from our informer (Nigel Stepney, ndr) but also of the fact that their chief designer (Mike Coughlan, ndr) had remained in contact with him and had received and continued to be in possession of a huge quantitative of technical information which was our our property. Therefore, from one side they were saying to us “let us trust each other”, but from the other they were hiding the most serious facts mentioned above, careful not to inform us about it, as the spirit and the letter of the agreement would have demanded ”.

MADE UP POKER - For the Ferrari it has been like finding itself “to play a hand of poker with an adversary who knew already its cards. The McLaren - Todt emphasizes - has confirmed that they had to install a firewall in order to prevent that other incoming information from Stepney would arrive to the team in a traceable way. Moreover Coughlan had been invited to tell Stepney to stop sending information. What a pity that Coughlan had asked for our braking modulation system information and he went to lunch with him in Spain and then he returned serenely home with 780 pages of designs, outlines, data and other, I am citing the official FIA statement, which permit to plan, to develop, to manage and to race a single-seat Ferrari 2007 Formula 1 car. As confirmed from the same FIA decision yesterday, the violation is a given from the simple fact of possessing that information, which by itself constitutes an enormous advantage”.