Friday, July 27, 2007

F1 extraordinary hearing

Amazing what can happen if you are a multi-million company, isn't it. In Formula One, the Ferrari and McLaren team are locked in a spying row. A row that McLaren seems to have gotten away with.

A disaffected Ferrari employee gave McLaren's chief designer, Mike Coughlan, confidential Ferrari documents. Police raided Coughlan's home under a tip from Ferrari and the 780-page technical dossier was found. However in an extraordinary hearing, the FIA's 25-strong World Motor Sports Council ruled that there was no evidence that McLaren had benefited from the confidential Ferrari documents that were found in the possession of their chief designer.

An FIA statement said: "The WMSC was satisfied that McLaren was in possession of confidential Ferrari information and is therefore in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code. However, there is insufficient evidence that this information was used in such a way to interfere improperly with the FIA F1 championship. We therefore impose no penalty."

I'm no lawyer but doesn't this mean that McLaren were found guilty by the FIA World Council but no action will be taken? Talk about an extraordinary hearing! Michael Rasmussen must be laughing his guts out in France at this!

BTW, if anyone is interested, reports state that Rasmussen has hired a lawyer already. That didn't take long did it?

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