Mosely: Stepney & Coughlan "minor players" in scandal

[Shaddock]

I think Mosely is just playing politics again. He's trying to drive a wedge between McLaren and Ferrari to weaken FOTA by trying to open old wounds. With Luca Colajann visiting Woking and the teams playing happy families they become a powerful adversaries for the FIA. If he can divide them up, he will get his way with standard cars – engines etc.

McLaren signed Nicholas Tombazis from Ferrari for a season and then he left again to go back to Ferrari. It may not have been written down on a piece of paper but the information the Stepney gave McLaren would not be half of what was exchanged when the head of aero moves between teams.

[xpensive]

Agree, more like miniscule in comparison.

[Rob W]

...McLaren was fined an outrageous amount of money, for an incident which a Ferrari-employee initiated, why perhaps there's limited reason for Ferrari to make this guy look too bad, but the whole story is strange.

Exactly - the most apt point made about this whole thing. What would the punishment have been if McLaren had broken into another team's facilities and stolen them? $500 million?

McLaren ...got punished for illicitly collecting, holding and using information from Ferrari in order to obtain a sporting advantage, then publicly lying about it and trying to bury the case

Um. At no stage was it shown Dennis knew anything about it. Once the case was underway it looked like he went to the FIA and tried to do the right thing (albeit very embarrassed) - clearly in order to prevent the team being excluded or him being painted further in a poor light.

For those who think this is plainly McLaren cheating, try this scenario: if Ferrari can claim 'rogue employee' re: Stepney removing stuff (after he's already been under suspicion of whatever), then it's only fair you also consider that Coughlan at McLaren was a 'rogue employee' also - acting without the knowledge of the team and against their sporting spirit (at least initially).

Once the stuff is in-house it can be used without everyone knowing the source easily.. it was the testing info which was the major hit for McLaren as it was pretty easily proven via the text messages and Alonso/De La Rosa's coming clean over it all.

The sheer fact that Stepney hasn't been charged says they either don't have nearly the evidence they thought on him - or they think he has sufficient enough info on their previous questionable operations that they don't want to piss him off lest it show up in the public domain.

[lkocev]

...McLaren was fined an outrageous amount of money, for an incident which a Ferrari-employee initiated, why perhaps there's limited reason for Ferrari to make this guy look too bad, but the whole story is strange.

Exactly - the most apt point made about this whole thing. What would the punishment have been if McLaren had broken into another team's facilities and stolen them? $500 million?

McLaren ...got punished for illicitly collecting, holding and using information from Ferrari in order to obtain a sporting advantage, then publicly lying about it and trying to bury the case

Um. At no stage was it shown Dennis knew anything about it. Once the case was underway it looked like he went to the FIA and tried to do the right thing (albeit very embarrassed) - clearly in order to prevent the team being excluded or him being painted further in a poor light.

I would agree with that, through all the crap that was going on it always seemed that McLaren were transparent. So what there over ambitous test driver and Alonso were e-mailing each other about 'tyre temperatures, tyre gas mixtures' ... they dont know anything about that sort of --- anyhow. I remember reading about Coughlan being suspended before any of this espionage bullshit came out, Dennis and Whitmarsh and co tried to keep it quiet, the red smurfs had other plans though.

[andartop]

Exactly - the most apt point made about this whole thing. What would the punishment have been if McLaren had broken into another team's facilities and stolen them? $500 million?
Um. At no stage was it shown Dennis knew anything about it. Once the case was underway it looked like he went to the FIA and tried to do the right thing (albeit very embarrassed) - clearly in order to prevent the team being excluded or him being painted further in a poor light.
For those who think this is plainly McLaren cheating, try this scenario: if Ferrari can claim 'rogue employee' re: Stepney removing stuff (after he's already been under suspicion of whatever), then it's only fair you also consider that Coughlan at McLaren was a 'rogue employee' also - acting without the knowledge of the team and against their sporting spirit (at least initially).
Once the stuff is in-house it can be used without everyone knowing the source easily.. it was the testing info which was the major hit for McLaren as it was pretty easily proven via the text messages and Alonso/De La Rosa's coming clean over it all.
The sheer fact that Stepney hasn't been charged says they either don't have nearly the evidence they thought on him - or they think he has sufficient enough info on their previous questionable operations that they don't want to piss him off lest it show up in the public domain.

All this has been said and done before in other threads, so my apologies to everyone reading these posts. However, some people seem to selectively forget some important aspects of this story..
If McLaren had officially actually broken into Ferrari's factory to steal this information, and this was proved, I would expect them to be banned from F1 for at least a couple of years, probably five.
If Dennis did not know anything then he should have been removed for incompetence, provided his employees were running tests trying out solutions based on the stolen information. He also should have avoided to "guarantee" to Mosley that the content of those "hot" e-mails contained absolutely no information relevant to the scandal. And he ought to have found out the truth a bit earlier and brought everything to light himself, not wait around several months waiting to see if he'd get away with it: surely, after the scandal broke out if he had asked around someone would have admitted to him what was going on! Not to mention anything about the text messages informing his team of Raikkonen's pit stop strategy, during a race: he was around there, wasn't he?
Obviously this is not a simple case of cheating. It is a very complicated case of cheating, involving parties from both sides. I believe the major hit for McLaren was not that they allowed all this to happen, but that when they were caught out they tried repeatedly over a period of months to bury the case, failing to see that such a huge scandal could not be buried, in other words they behaved exactly as a guilty party would. But they did admit everything in the end and apologized, after they were assured their drivers would keep their points to keep the fight for the WDC interesting, so if they were happy to do that I can' see why everyone else shouldn't be happy with that.

[xpensive]

I believe that it could be useful to have some corporate management experience before passing judgement on who should be aware of exactly what a staff of 1000+ are doing at each and every minute. Next question still remains, exactly what earth-shattering technical information are we discussing, tyre-temperatures?

[timbo]

Next question still remains, exactly what earth-shattering technical information are we discussing, tyre-temperatures?

Revealed on hearings: a) weight distribution b) pre-Australia floor construction c) tyre inflation gas d) braking system e) pit-stop strategy.

However, you may call Mosley anyone, but he is a smart guy=) Instead of discussion about old fart who wants to stay for another 5(?) years, there's topic on soon-to-be 2 year old case that was buried by both teams.

[xpensive]

That's the whole lot? I guess I rest my case then...

[andartop]

I believe that it could be useful to have some corporate management experience before passing judgement on who should be aware of exactly what a staff of 1000+ are doing at each and every minute. Next question still remains, exactly what earth-shattering technical information are we discussing, tyre-temperatures?

I 'll agree to that, unfortunately I 've never managed a F1 team. On the other hand I believe it doesn't take a rare genious to circulate a note asking all your employees to come forth with any relevant information they might have or risk sacking when you have a huge scandal exploding up your corporate ass.. Or maybe actually assign a group of people to find out for you what your employees had been doing. So he either knew all along, or simply did not do enough to find out, as he should have immediately after the scandal came to light, that's all I'm saying. 1000 pages worth of technical information from one's main rival team even if useless in respect of copying-pasting things straight to your car definitely allows you to understand your enemy's weaknessess, and take advantage of that. It doesn't take a corporate manager to figure out that knowing one's enemy is the first step to defeating him!

[donskar]

Never in the course of online forums have so many wrote so much to say so little.

PLEASE STOP! IT'S HISTORY!

How different is all this from two children engaged in "Did so!" "Did not!"?

All that's missing is someone saying (again!) that Ferrari was to blame for allowing themselves to be robbed.

[donskar]

I'm so !)*!@$!# at this whole thing I can't even remember basic grammar!

Never in the course of online forums have so many WRITTEN so much to say so little.

My abject apologies

[xpensive]

donskar, you really need to get over your shyness. Don't be so hesitant to tell us how you really feel.

[donskar]

donskar, you really need to get over your shyness. Don't be so hesitant to tell us how you really feel.

Touche!

[andartop]

All that's missing is someone saying (again!) that Ferrari was to blame for allowing themselves to be robbed.

Well, that's exactly what they were saying that got me all started again.. Did apologize though!

[xpensive]

Couldn't help myself Tex. Now if only everyone here had got your message straight, we'd be in good shape...