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Silas Talbot

Mclaren Stealing Ferrari Secrets?

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To me, I find it strange and ridiculous as below:

"The plot came to the light after Coughlan's wife asked a copy shop in England to scan all the papers in order to digitalize them. Instead of doing this job herself and guarding the secrecy of the situation, she asked an employee to do the job for her and when he saw the confidential material, he immediately informed Ferrari. One has to ask the question: How stupid do you have to be in order to get a major role in a Formula One team?"

(Source: http://f1.automoto365.com/news/controller....p;news_id=26724)

When you are in the possession of such highly confidential documents, no one would do it like Coughlan did.

It looks like a ploy by Ferrari to weaken Mclaren unity at the same time to get rid of Nigel Stepney.

I won't rule out such a dirty trick by Ferrari as what they always do when they find their closest rival has a chance to go faster than them.

CUNSPIRAZZZYYYY!!!!!!!!!!112#2#@2!@12@#$!@4!1!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

No. Just no. That's. No.

-Eric

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McLaren do not have any way out of this I'm afraid and must brace themselves for a certain deduction of WCC points - Will Lewis and nando get points deductions too? who knows, but this is very serious and Mclaren are guilty by association.

The problem they have is that Coughlan will do anything to save his a## from a criminal conviction and that includes implicating his own team and the associated sponsors. Vodafone must be kicking themselves to now be associated with a team accused of fraud and dirty tricks.

"The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between March and July 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, including information that could be used to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and/or run a 2007 Ferrari Formula One car."

I'll be amazed if Mclaren get away with this.

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This could go either way.

I'm getting some money on KR and FM for the Drivers World Championship before the betting is suspended.

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This could go either way.

I'm getting some money on KR and FM for the Drivers World Championship before the betting is suspended.

:bag: me too!

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interesting, i thought that the non-compete clauses in contracts were the primary protection for teams. however what is in your head is your own intellectual property. seems absurd to me that a solution to a problem can be considered the ipr of a legal entity...that is why you are the lawyer and i am not! :lol:

Well, most patent publications in the world are about those solutions. US patent court has actually in the 70's described what is patentable as follows: ' anything under the sun made by man'. That is pretty general expression, isn't it? ^_^

By the way, I read somewhere that FIA is accusing Mclaren of 'infringing the F1 rules'. I suppose the ipr protection issue is described in those rules quite strictly, that's why they don't have to make separate patent applications about everything. Those rules can of course also be quite strict, I would't be surprised if Mclaren drives loose some championship points...

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I haven't commented much on the matter, I like to read all the theories and articles, and wait awhile before jumping to any conclusions. I hope this is purely the work of two individuals who were unhappy in their teams and that there is no 'bigger picture'. No doubt these things happen on a regular basis on a small scale (rather than the design of a whole car), but I can't help thinking back to the last big case of 'cheating' in F1 and remember that the FIA likes to make examples of teams.

It will be a darned shame if this will affect the outcome of the WCC and / or the WDC.

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It will be a darned shame if this will affect the outcome of the WCC and / or the WDC.

Well in my humble opinion IF the outcome was to strip McLaren of its points to date.

Rule out F1 for me as a viewable form of motorsport.

B.E. has done his best over the number of years to put MONEY (for him) AHEAD of a viable sport.

Like if you were a sponsor forking out millions of dollars would YOU want to be involved in a FARSE like this ?

Answer NO and us as viewers would we WASTE the time recording races that are shown in the early mornings on TV here in OZ be bothered recording them to watch later? Anwser NO

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Well, I guess someone will sooner or later start a new thread with this but:

Coughan admitted he showed the documents to some colleagues at McLaren. Now that is serious. If there is enough people involved, I don't think they will be able to sacrifice Coughan and get away with it. Some versions say he showed them to Witmarsh...ouch.

Seems like the s##t hit the fan!

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if the team is docked points, i dont believe the drivers will be as well.

Brazil 1995 Benetton & Williams were deducted points but drivers kept theirs as they had nothing to do with it. In this situation the drivers cant be blamed, they were 100% unaware of what was going on

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if the team is docked points, i dont believe the drivers will be as well.

Brazil 1995 Benetton & Williams were deducted points but drivers kept theirs as they had nothing to do with it. In this situation the drivers cant be blamed, they were 100% unaware of what was going on

A friend of mine told me that the driver's contract has a clause stipulating that they can leave the team freely in case of some issue like this happens. Is that true?

That might trigger the announced move from Alonso.

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Pinch of salt time. The affadavit is supposedly for the eyes of Ferrari, their counsel, and the FIA. How'd a newspaper get hold of it? Keep your powder dry folks.

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Good point Russ.

Brazil 1995 Benetton & Williams were deducted points but drivers kept theirs as they had nothing to do with it. In this situation the drivers cant be blamed, they were 100% unaware of what was going on

I don't think this "solution" of the FIA makes any sense at all. Pathetic. The drivers benefited as much as the team.

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Interesting theory. Mind telling me how Ferrari would orchestrate such a scenario? Are you suggesting that Stepney was okay with incrminating himself, or maybe that Todt brainwashed him? Did Michael run over his head this time perhaps, sending him doolally?

I thought you debated kinder than this, Steve. There's no reason to belittle my theory to the point that you are attempting. How do you prove Stepney was the source of the package? He denies being the source. It would be very easy for a Ferrari employee to deliver that package. Hell, it could have been dropped on Coughlan's doorstep; it needs no grand orchestration.

Pinch of salt time. The affadavit is supposedly for the eyes of Ferrari, their counsel, and the FIA. How'd a newspaper get hold of it? Keep your powder dry folks.

This smells more and more like a set-up.

To all the people that think this will affect McLaren, please go read the FIA Formula Technical regulations. The only part of this that can affect McLaren is if they have Ferrari parts on their cars. Possession of documents is not covered. This is why Ron is stressing that there are no Ferrari-owned parts on his cars.

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if the team is docked points, i dont believe the drivers will be as well.

Brazil 1995 Benetton & Williams were deducted points but drivers kept theirs as they had nothing to do with it. In this situation the drivers cant be blamed, they were 100% unaware of what was going on

mayb but they have avantaged from it if they (MM) have built a car with prior knoledge to how ferias works and with that knoledge in mind!

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I thought you debated kinder than this, Steve. There's no reason to belittle my theory to the point that you are attempting. How do you prove Stepney was the source of the package? He denies being the source. It would be very easy for a Ferrari employee to deliver that package. Hell, it could have been dropped on Coughlan's doorstep; it needs no grand orchestration.

This smells more and more like a set-up.

To all the people that think this will affect McLaren, please go read the FIA Formula Technical regulations. The only part of this that can affect McLaren is if they have Ferrari parts on their cars. Possession of documents is not covered. This is why Ron is stressing that there are no Ferrari-owned parts on his cars.

13.7

If in the opinion of the Formula One Commission a competitor fails to operate his team in a manner

compatible with the standards of the Championship or in any way brings the Championship into disrepute,

the FIA may exclude such competitor from the Championship forthwith.

I'd say that's pretty open-ended. There's no explicit definition of what constitutes disrepute, but McLaren could certainly be held accountable under such a vague definition.

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13.7

If in the opinion of the Formula One Commission a competitor fails to operate his team in a manner

compatible with the standards of the Championship or in any way brings the Championship into disrepute,

the FIA may exclude such competitor from the Championship forthwith.

I'd say that's pretty open-ended. There's no explicit definition of what constitutes disrepute, but McLaren could certainly be held accountable under such a vague definition.

Interesting that the constant media leaks Russ pointed out would contribute to this. If this situation were handled with less of those 'leaks', the sport would have less chance of being in 'disrepute'. Again, I wonder who gains by leaking to the media? Why, Ferrari do! How interesting....

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I thought you debated kinder than this, Steve. There's no reason to belittle my theory to the point that you are attempting. How do you prove Stepney was the source of the package? He denies being the source. It would be very easy for a Ferrari employee to deliver that package. Hell, it could have been dropped on Coughlan's doorstep; it needs no grand orchestration.

My sarcasm was not an attempt to belittle you, Mike, so apologies if it caused offence.

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I knew what was going on but I couldn't tell you guys...

however today i couldn't resist the temptation...

I'll finally tell you how all these ferrari information was given to Coughlan...

msnespionaje.gif

i found it in a spanish FA fansite(www.safety-car.net)!Isn't it great?

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Someone already posted this. Yeah it's funny. The first time. :P

oops!Sorry,i hadn't seen it!!!! :blush:

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this is the least i can do in order to compensate for the previous one.

these are from monaco.I hope they haven't been posted before!

2~10.jpg

2~9.jpg

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this is the least i can do in order to compensate for the previous one.

these are from monaco.I hope they haven't been posted before!

2~10.jpg

2~9.jpg

:lol:

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Well, I guess someone will sooner or later start a new thread with this but:

Coughan admitted he showed the documents to some colleagues at McLaren. Now that is serious. If there is enough people involved, I don't think they will be able to sacrifice Coughan and get away with it. Some versions say he showed them to Witmarsh...ouch.

Seems like the s##t hit the fan!

If and that is a very big IF, Witmarsh was shown the documents, I believe it was rather foolish of him not to have stood Coughan down asap. He has by keeping this information quite exposed McLaren more than nessary.

We will just have to wait and see what transpires.

A friend of mine told me that the driver's contract has a clause stipulating that they can leave the team freely in case of some issue like this happens. Is that true?

That might trigger the announced move from Alonso.

I would believe that such a clause would be in place no doubt at all.

Pinch of salt time. The affadavit is supposedly for the eyes of Ferrari, their counsel, and the FIA. How'd a newspaper get hold of it? Keep your powder dry folks.

Selective leaking from Ferrari :ph34r:

Good point Russ.

I don't think this "solution" of the FIA makes any sense at all. Pathetic. The drivers benefited as much as the team.

I agree, the drivers benefit was well as the team. People are forever going on about it being a team sport. They win as a team they lose as a team.

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I don't know if something similiar was posted, but this is just getting more and more interesting...

Stepney warned Coughlan of Ferrari floor

By Jonathan Noble Thursday, July 19th 2007, 14:22 GMT

Nigel Stepney emailed McLaren's chief designer Mike Coughlan on the eve of the season to tip him off about Ferrari's moveable floor design, this week's Autosport magazine reveals.

McLaren will face an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council next week to face charges of 'fraudulent conduct' over the possession of secret Ferrari documents from March to July this year.

The matter was originally only thought to relate to a 780-page Ferrari technical dossier, which McLaren said Coughlan had in his possession only from the end of April.

However, a reliable source has revealed to this week's Autosport magazine that the March date the FIA has referred to relates to early contact between Stepney and Coughlan.

In particular, the source says it relates to a specific email that Stepney sent to Coughlan, revealing Ferrari's floor design and tipping the McLaren designer off about taking possible action about it.

Although it is not known if Coughlan passed on this information to the team, McLaren did ask for a rule clarification about Ferrari's movable floor design at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

That action resulted in the FIA changing its floor tests and outlawing the design Ferrari ran at the time - which is believed to have hindered their form.

The background to McLaren's actions in Melbourne will likely play a key part in the FIA World Motor Sport Council hearing next week, as the sport's governing body faces the task of working out whether or not the team did anything wrong.

Autosport also reveals that the Surrey copy shop that tipped off Ferrari about Coughlan having the 780-page dossier was asked to scan the information in order to transfer it into electronic format and in to a computer disc.

It is understood that after the information had been put on disk, the actual Ferrari document was shredded and burned in Coughlan's back garden.

Coughlan is understood to have been advised to destroy the document after showing a glimpse of it to McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale at a golf club. It is not known, however, when this incident took place.

www.autosport.com

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