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Ferrari's Stepney Faces Criminal Enquiry

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The Modena district attorney in Italy has opened criminal investigation against Ferrari stalwart Nigel Stepney, after the Maranello outfit filed a formal complaint earlier this week.

The team would not divulge the nature of their complaint or what Stepney is accused of, but a team spokesman has confirmed to autosport.com that the Briton is at the centre of investigation.

"Ferrari have taken action against Nigel Stepney, and there is now an investigation," the spokesman said, adding that Stepney is still an employee of Ferrari.

Ferrari refused to offer any additional information, saying they will refrain from making any comment on the matter while the investigation is ongoing.

Stepney himself is currently on holiday, and all attempts to reach him for comment over the last few days have failed.

Autosport.com understands the Modena district attorney has launched a criminal investigation after receiving Ferrari's complaint with accompanying documents. A public defence lawyer has been appointed to represent Stepney in the investigation in his absence.

Just a few months ago, two former Ferrari employees were found guilty of taking team secrets to Toyota.

Stepney is responsible for team performance development at Ferrari, having been the Scuderia's race and test technical manager until earlier this year.

The Briton, who joined Ferrari a decade ago from Benetton, was moved to his new position after claiming he was unhappy at the technical department following Ross Brawn's departure.

Stepney had hoped to be able to take a sabbatical this year, but that request was declined by the team who instead gave him a new factory-based role.

Speaking to Autosport magazine earlier this year, he said: "I am looking at spending a year away from Ferrari.

"I'm not currently happy with the situation within the team - I really want to move forward with my career and that's something that's not happening right now.

"Ideally, I'd like to move into a new environment here at Ferrari - but if an opportunity arose with another team, I would definitely consider it."

Stepney has been widely linked with a possible move to Honda.

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Hmm...What do you guys think? I think Ferrari is on the decline because of his absence........and are really dumb to launch an investigation against him when they really need his services.

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Hmm...What do you guys think? I think Ferrari is on the decline because of his absence........and are really dumb to launch an investigation against him when they really need his services.

It's only dumb if it's totally unfounded. I'm going to wait to find out more until i pass judgement.

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I agree LFS, the timing would make sense with Ferraris recent slump. I Look forward to finding out what he's being accused of.

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This is going to be messey :eusa_think:

Details are still very vague at this stage so we will have to wait for more information as it becomes available.

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rumours that he's going to Honda? ooh there could be a new 'dream team' with Brawn, Stepney & Button!

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The downturn of Ferrari owes to a lot more than stepney IMO it is a number of factors. As for the issue in hand, I will also pass no judgement till we know what he has been accused of. And to be fair, even with Brawn and Stepney in I would hardly call Honda a dream team, their management seems to be a little on the poor side

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I found this interesting article on grandprix.com

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The Dream Team is coming apart

There is drama going on in Italy at the moment - but no-one seems to be quite sure exactly what is happening. As we reported a few days ago a senior member of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro has run into trouble with the team. Nigel Stepney, the team's technical coordinator, is now being investigated by the public prosecution service in Modena.

"Nigel Stepney is still an employee but we have brought an action against him," said a Ferrari spokesman. "It is not related to any event, it is related to his behaviour."

Ferrari is not saying what Stepney is supposed to have done but stories in Italy allege that there was an attempt to sabotage the Ferrari F1 cars before the Monaco Grand Prix. This sounds rather unlikely - and even more difficult to prove. There have also been allegations flying about that Stepney has been selling Ferrari equipment to other teams. At the same time Stepney was talking openly to other teams about his future employment and, we hear, was proposing to bring a group of top engineers from Ferrari with him. No-one knows who this group included but obviously this would have meant trouble at Maranello. When we last spoke to Stepney he alleged that Ferrari had people trailing him wherever he went. It was in this period that he had meetings with Honda F1.

Stepney started his F1 career at the age of 21, after cutting his teeth with Broadspeed in the European Touring Car Championship. He began his Grand Prrix career with the Shadow F1 team and then worked at Team Lotus from 1980-1988 before moving to Benetton. During this time he worked with Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet and in 1992 he ran a Formula 3000 team for Piquet before being asked by former Benetton technical director John Barnard to join Ferrari.

He started working at Ferrari in January 1993 and played an important role, with Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, in getting the team organised enough to win a string of World Championships with Michael Schumacher. With Brawn having departed and Todt in his twilight years with the organisation, the wheels of the relationship have now come off in the biggest possible way. Stepney was not happy with the role given him by the team after Brawn's departure and over the winter he was taken off the race team.

For the moment, Stepney has gone to ground. He is rumoured to be in Asia.

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"When we last spoke to Stepney he alleged that Ferrari had people trailing him wherever he went."

Wow, Ferrari have a couple of P.I's in their esteemed staff,huh?

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its like a soap opera!

why would Stepney do something like that against Ferrari though??

There is an explanation of what is Ferrari investigating in the Kimi Bad Luck thread. Brad posted there an article saying Ferrari is actually investigating some sort of sabotage to their fuel tanks.

If it is true it would be a very serious accusation. If this was an official Ferrari statement, they must have some sort of basis for this. They are not prone to open themselves much to public scrutiny so it is already a surprise that they chose to disclose this to the general public.

I don't see an easy way to prove it in connection with Stepney unless they already have the elements.

The plot thickens...

My bet, anyways, is that the powder they found is some sugar Kimi poured in the gas tank. Then he added a twist of lemon and drank it with a straw. :naughty: If they find one of those little daikiri umbrellas, then they can be sure it was Kimi.

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My bet, anyways, is that the powder they found is some sugar Kimi poured in the gas tank. Then he added a twist of lemon and drank it with a straw. :naughty: If they find one of those little daikiri umbrellas, then they can be sure it was Kimi.

:lol:

I'm "suppose" to be angry with u, but goddamnit, thats funny! :lol:

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:lol:

This is just bizarre, but I had a feeling stepney was not at one with the team when he started demanding a job that moved him away from the track. Still, sabotaging his own cars... thats a pretty heavy allegation to make and I do not believe it personally

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Ferrari has taken legal action against one of its long-serving senior staff, Nigel Stepney.

The Italian squad filed a formal complaint earlier this week and Stepney is now under investigation by the public prosecution office in Modena, the nearest major town to Ferrari’s factory in Maranello.

The team has confirmed that it has launched court proceedings but has refused to divulge its grounds for doing so.

“Nigel Stepney is still an employee but we have brought an action against him,” a Ferrari spokesman told Reuters.

“It is not related to any event; it is related to his behaviour.”

In the absence of any hard facts as to what Stepney is alleged to have done, a variety of theories – conspiracy or otherwise – have surfaced in the Italian media.

Sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport claims that at the centre of the probe is an attempted sabotage.

Citing a leak from the investigation, the paper says Ferrari has presented prosecutor Giuseppe Tibis with evidence that its cars were tampered with three days before the team left for Monte Carlo, when technicians discovered a suspicious white powder around the fuel vent.

There is no suggestion that the team’s performance in Monaco was compromised by the alleged interference because the cars were thoroughly checked before leaving Italy and the affected parts replaced.

Elsewhere there are suggestions that the complaint concerns industrial espionage.

In April this year, two former Ferrari employees were convicted of taking team secrets to Toyota and were given suspended prison sentences.

It should be emphasised that no charges have been brought against Stepney at this stage and neither Ferrari nor the prosecutor has been prepared to disclose details of the investigation.

Stepney has been unavailable for comment and is reported to be on holiday. A defence counsel has been appointed to represent him in his absence.

The Englishman joined Ferrari from Benetton in 1992 and was part of the so-called ‘dream team’ that helped propel Michael Schumacher to his five successive world championships in 2000-04.

He described himself as a ‘glorified chief mechanic’ and played a key role in coordinating the team’s activities and ensuring its preparation and reliability were of a high standard.

But tensions between him and Ferrari’s senior management became public earlier this year when Stepney voiced his displeasure with the technical reshuffle that followed Ross Brawn’s departure, which consigned him to a factory-based role.

He let it be known that he was open to offers from other teams and has recently been linked with a possible move to Honda.

Source

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Hmm...

I've been reading this thread and the one on Kimi's bad luck...but no one seems to be talking about the wind tunnel at Ferrari...

There's more on the wind tunnel at the link below...

http://www.f1complete.com/content/view/4803/617/

Extracts from an article on BBC. http://www.totalf1.com/view-article.php?newsid=213149

The Finn started the year as favourite for the world title after switching from McLaren, but he has struggled to adapt to Ferrari's Bridgestone tyres. "They are very different from the tyres I used last year," said the 27-year-old Raikkonen, who used Michelins during his five-year spell with McLaren. "Each time I get in the car I am learning more and more about them." Raikkonen, who is fourth in the standings, believes the disparity is all down to the tyres and says world champion Alonso is experiencing similar problems after racing on Michelins at Renault before his move to McLaren.

"Fernando, like me, is driving for a new team and using different tyres. From what I read he basically is saying similar things," said Raikkonen. "The qualifying has not been going in a way I would like it to go. We have worked hard to improve the situation and hopefully now we will get it right."

So i guess Ferrari's loss of speed is more than due to some white powder! :naughty:

What do u guys think?

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The white powder is not an excuse because all affected parts where replaced. Kimi is just struggling to adapt to Ferrari there is no hard and fast excuse for him this time.

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The white powder is not an excuse because all affected parts where replaced. Kimi is just struggling to adapt to Ferrari there is no hard and fast excuse for him this time.

I guess this thread is slowly shifting off topic :lol:

It is about the Ferrari allegations of sabotage from Stepney. Kimi's performance has nothing to do with all this!

I insist. It is uncommon from the Maranello guys to be so vocal about this kind of things. So the accusation does not sound like a made up excuse or mind game. Then again, they can be pretty machiavelic :eusa_think:

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Ferrari themselves haven't said sabotage at this moment in time, remember it is still a rumour

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Well this is an amazing story. I hope we hear all about it in the coming days, weeks and months.

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its like a soap opera!

why would Stepney do something like that against Ferrari though??

why? Money, every man has his price and for F1 teams money is no obstacle.

of course this doesn't mean he actually did it but if a team did try to sabotage Ferrari and were able to get a Stepney then that team needs to be found out and delt with severely.

"Cheating" with driver orders, or flexi-wings, or mass dampers, or extra fuel tanks is one thing. but to sabotage a rival team or to even atempt to do so should be grounds for expulsion from F1 immediately and forever.

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why? Money, every man has his price and for F1 teams money is no obstacle.

of course this doesn't mean he actually did it but if a team did try to sabotage Ferrari and were able to get a Stepney then that team needs to be found out and delt with severely.

"Cheating" with driver orders, or flexi-wings, or mass dampers, or extra fuel tanks is one thing. but to sabotage a rival team or to even atempt to do so should be grounds for expulsion from F1 immediately and forever.

Something just isn't right with this story...acoording to the version, somebody sabotaged the fuel tanks BEFORE they moved to Monaco. It was pretty obvious that the sabotage would have been discovered before the race. If someone as high as Stepney was thinking about sabotaging, and if he really had access to the cars at all times, why didn't do that right before the parc ferme? No team would pay for sabotaging a car in such a way that it has so many chances to be amended before the race.

And if team members would have been so easy to bribe as you are implying, then the best sabotage would be to buy some Ferrari crew members to sabotage the pitstops, or the pre-race checkup. Trying to throw mud at other teams won't work in this case.

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Without Brawn Ferrari really are falling apart from a technical point of view. Now they can't even sabotage their own cars properly.

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This is being blown way out of proportion with all this talk about sabotage. After reading a grandprix.com article, a clearer picture emerges:

Article

Take note of the allegations that Stepney was in discussion with other teams (Honda) and in particular the speculation that he would bring a group of Ferrari employees with him to (Honda?). Likely this last speculation violates a Ferrari contract or policy and that is what Stepney is being taken to court over. This would also dovetail with comments by Ferrari that the legal action has to do with his behaviour, not any particular event (which the fuel tank sabotage would have been).

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Without Brawn Ferrari really are falling apart from a technical point of view. Now they can't even sabotage their own cars properly.

:lolroll:

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