Intrigue, Industrial Sabotage, Team Shake-ups and 780 pages of Ferrari internal racing documents are percolating through the Formula One garage.
Stepney-Gate, so named after now-former chief Ferrari Mechanic Nigel Stephany, has already resulted in one Court case in London, a potential criminal case in the Modena, Italy district attorney's office, and now an unusual meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council set for July 26th.
The scandal, which encompasses Ferrari, McLaren, and Honda camps, began "innocently" enough, when Trudy Coughlan, wife of Mike Coughlan (McLaren's chief designer) , took 780 pages of a Ferrari data to a copying center near McLaren's World headquarters. The odd copying request resulted in a call to Ferrari's lawyers, who immediately set to work to get the material back.
Disks with the 780 pages of date were discovered in the Coughlans' home, and speculation has swirled as to when and how exactly Coughlan got the highly confidential information. The Ferrari data essentially related to how Ferrari designs, races and runs their F-1 program.
Meanwhile, Stepney was having trouble at Ferrari. Stepney's job duties were changed after Ross Brawn's sabbatical, and Stepney eventually requested that his travel duties be cut back. According to Stepney, a 14 year veteran of the Scuderia team, Ferrari reacted as if the request was the highest form of betrayal. His home in Italy was raided, workers at the shop were taken to the police station for questioning, and tracking devices were discovered on his vehicle. Why such extreme measures? Stepney comments that he "know{s} where the bodies have been buried in the last 10 years." And he knows most of the Ferrari technical data.
What is clear is this: Stepney and Coughlan met on April 28 in Spain. And on June 1st, the two met with Honda's team principal, Nick Fry. Stepney told reporters that there was a group of people from the Ferrari team who wanted to jump ship with him to Honda (or another team). Coughlan was apparently looking to leave McLaren as well. Stepney denies providing the papers to Coughlan, pointing out that it is his design and plan that is in the paperwork. If it was in his mind, and he is the creater, why the need to take a hard copy and give it to another?
Stepney implies he is being framed by Ferrari, because as soon as he started to make waves, these events started to happen to him. "Ferrari is unique in Italy, it's a religion. If you go against it, it's like going against the Vatican."
In the British civil case, Ferrari is asking Coughlan to explain a conversation he had with Jonathan Neale, McLaren's racing managing director. The answer could bring McLaren's driver's into the fight, as the World Motor Sports Council is looking into a breach in the International Sporting Code, specifically that between March and July McLaren had "unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Ferrari, including information that could be used to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and/or run a 2007 Ferrari Formula One car."
Ron Dennis, McLaren chief, has started the process to disclose for FIA inspection all the design information related to the 2007 McLaren Formula One car.
In other words, the FIA wants to know if McLaren's design team used the purloined Ferrari guide to help build the "new" McLaren.
If found in violation of the rule, McLaren could face anything from reprimand to disqualification to loss of driver/manufacturer points for the races already run, and in McLaren's case, won.
Information from: Speedtv.com, The independent.co.uk, and Windtunnel with Dave Despain
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