back to article McLaren accelerates away from fines and expulsion

McLaren has escaped sanction following a hearing which found insufficient evidence that the current Formula One leaders had benefited from leaked Ferrari data. The International Automobile Federation (FIA), which met at its world motor sport council today, said in a statement that it could yet kick McLaren out of the F1 …

COMMENTS

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  1. Dillon Pyron

    Bernie would be a fool

    Bernie would be a fool to kick out McLaren as long as "young Lewis" (Steve Matchett on Speed) still has a chance. He has fans everywhere. Not even the Tifosi can agree on Kimi vs Felipe.

    OTOH, this wouldn't be the first time that the FIA was viewed as favoring the red cars (now that they're a proper Ferrari red instead of Marlboro red).

  2. Kevin Johnston

    Definite dodgy ground here

    The FIA are trying to avoid getting themselves into a 'restraint of trade' area as if they penalise McLaren for one of their employees having data from another team then they will need to ban any employees changing teams, even the drivers. No-one can be ignorant of the teams strategies/technical bumph and be an effetcive team member so that would bar them from moving teams as they would be in possession of confidential information. You can't just forget it all as it is part of who you are and hence your marketability.

    Unless they can show, beyond reasonable doubt, that the data was used at McLaren then it is no different from a designer or driver changing teams as they are intimately aware of the thought process behind the car and how it handles.

    Then again as has been already mentioned, McLaren's cars are not red enough.

  3. Tom Simnett

    Red cars

    You have to admit, McLaren have been adding redness to their cars steadily over the years...

  4. Nick Ramsay

    Point of order

    @Dillon Pyron - The president of the FIA is Max Mosely, not Bernie Ecclestone.

  5. Vernon Lloyd

    Funny this

    Both McLaren and Ferrari are just as guilty. Yes the stupid bloke from McLaren should not have taken the documents, but the Ferrari bloke should not have passed them on.

    Looking back in the past though, I do not remember a time over the last few years where Ferrari been in trouble which have lost them points or threatened to be kicked out of the championship. Lets face it there are one of the dirtiest teams in the field. Please, correct me if I am wrong here ;-)

    If (and it is a big if) McLaren get kicked out of this season, then Ferrari should do so to.

    However I feel if it was not for Lewis and the extra money he will bring into the sport McLaren would already be kicked. Shows that money talks and Ferrari gets away with blue murder again.

    Oh BTW I am a Jenson Fan, and to be honest even though I would like Lewis (as a Brit) to win I would like someone new to win this year. Just in case this u think this was an anti-Ferrari post ...;-)

    Heres to the teams we see very little of on race day......

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ferrari worried by competition

    Seems to me that Ferrari are a little too persistent in their quest to get McLaren kicked out the championship. Of course everyone wants to win, but their determination to disqualify their opponents - even with no evidence - doesn't seem particularly sporting to me.

    Without McLaren, who could possibly challenge them this season?

  7. Adam

    Underhanded?

    What? Underhandedness? In Formula One? And it's NOT the red cars? I think that's the real story!

  8. Ross Fleming

    Were historically red

    McLaren were historically red and white until the mid-90's when they dropped their Marlboro sponsorship - moved to West as the sponsorship which changed the car to black and silver. Then came Emirates (i think) for red to be reintroduced, and then Vodafone.

    FIA would be mad to penalise them though - especially as it's turning into the best season in at least a decade. As Kevin points out, what if they guy who transferred had just remembered the things in the document? It's a fine line between personal and company IP.

  9. Steve Cass

    The McLarens are actually orange

    If you see the McLarens running around without sponsorship (sometimes during the off season), they traditionally have the cars in an all orange livery, which is then 'painted' in the sponsors colours for the season.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it really a problem?

    I can't see what the problem really is. If you look at some other forms of motor sport they have all the competitors using identical vehicles.

    We have to consider what F1 is all about. Is it to find the best diver, the best car or to provide spectator interest? There has been a lot of comment over the past few years that F1 is just a procession whose order is only altered by who has the best pit stop or fuel strategy.

    I think that F1 could benefit by making all teams share the information that they have. That would mean the top teams with very deep pockets would only have a technological advantage for a short period of time. The teams that run on a relative shoe string would be in a much better position to be competitive.

    I would like to see the grid for the race being in reverse order to qualifying. That would mean the slowest teams in qualifying being at the front of the grid and the fastest qualifier being right at the back of the grid. That would ensure that overtaking is a must if you want to win the race. To stop the top teams from making sure that they had the slowest qualifying time to get a front row start they could give points for qualifying with the slowest car gaining the most qualifying points.

  11. Karl Lloyd

    Cheating again ...

    I think you'd have to be pretty naive to believe that this kind of thing doesn't go on all the time anyway, and the teams all know about it. The only reason Ferrari have decide to make such a big deal of it on this occasion is that they were lagging far behind McLaren and spied an opportunity for penalty points or even disqualification.

    It's that good old sporting Ferrari spirit again ...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Vernon Lloyd

    I totally agree - it seems that Ferarri can always get away with whatever they want, without deduction of points etc. I have lost count of the amount of times they have been caught cheating and got off with it.

    I wonder what will happen this time, and what would have happened if it were the other way round?

  13. J

    Huh?

    Curious that almost everybody is talking about Ferrari and how bad they are... when it was McLaren who was caught cheating!!! Must be because this is a site frequented mostly by the British (is it?). Or is because it's Friday?

    (OK, it was one of their staff, not "McLaren", but so? Do you think this type of thing happens without a fair amount of money changing hands, big wigs being involved, etc.? Yeah, right.)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And ...

    in related news, WWF IS REAL !!!

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