F1: McLaren Must Step Up To Prove Their Innocence

[Rory Phoulorie]

Tuesday 24th July 2007

On Thursday, Stepneygate will make its third court appearance. Already the focus of a civil prosecution in Britain and a criminal investigation in Italy, the crisis will be discussed at an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris. With the World Championship at stake, it is not merely McLaren on trial but F1 itself. If justice is not seen as being served then the sport could suffer an irretrievable blow.

One crucial divergence between this week's court date and its two forerunners is a salient difference in the required balance of proof. Having charged McLaren and summoned the team to appear, the FIA are effectively acting as judge, jury and prosecutor. As such, it can be assumed that rather than be presumed innocent, as they would be in a standard court of law, McLaren will be called upon to prove they are not guilty of benefiting from the stolen package of information allegedly found in the possession of their chief designer, Mike Coughlan.

It is a foreboding challenge. For instance, it was speculated at the Nurburgring that a central tenet of McLaren's defence would be a claim that 'a whistleblower within Ferrari's own ranks drew their attention to certain elements of the red car's design that others believe them to have gleaned from the stolen documents found in Coughlan's house'. Any such development would be a devastating riposte if only 'reasonable doubt' of guilt is required. Nonetheless, if the burden of proof is levied against McLaren, then only unambiguous proof of the whistleblower's existence and the evidence he (or she) provided will be deemed sufficient.

Likewise, the argument that Coughlan was acting as a rogue element will - in theory - carry no weight as the FIA rulebook makes no allowance for such mitigation. Article 3.1 of the 2007 Sporting Code specifically states: "It is the competitor's responsibility to ensure that all persons concerned by his entry observe all the requirements of the Agreement, the Code, the Technical Regulations and the Sporting Regulations". In summary, if a team member is guilty then so too is the team as a whole.

Given that McLaren publicly confirmed almost a month ago that a 'senior member of its technical team' had 'personally received a package of technical information from a Ferrari employee at the end of April', pre-trial speculation has centred on the type of punishment that will be meted out rather than the verdict. The plethora of penalties available to the FIA range between a paltry fine and expulsion from the 2007 championship. Generally, the expectation is nearer to the former than the latter, but it is very much a guessing game.

For the media, Stepneygate has become dangerous territory. Too many reports have been based on off-the-record briefings and conjecture. Suspicion about the origin, motivation and validity of 'insider' reports has become prevalent. Then again, it is also apparent that several F1 publications have been wary of discussing the crisis and portraying the sport in a negative light. This is an unseemly episode in F1's history in so many respects.

The negative publicity - and its inevitable consequence - must also be factored in to the FIA's thinking. Regardless of the evidence presented on Thursday, it is impossible to believe that the attitude of the sport's governing body will not be swayed by the delicate state of the 2007 season. The repercussions for F1 if McLaren were deducted points or even expelled from the championship would be devastating. It may never recover.

Aside from McLaren, Ferrari are the team most closely associated with the crisis. They also have the most to lose.

It is hardly to their credit that the team apparently leaks like a sieve - and McLaren's justified anger over extracts from Coughlan's sworn affidavit repeatedly appearing in the Italian press must also be addressed by the FIA. Nor is Ferrari's image improved by the apparent ease in which classified information was reputedly removed from their headquarters. By their own account, one disaffected employer not only sabotaged their machinery at F1's flagship event in Monaco but the team only became aware that a rival designer had been sent a mammoth, 780-page dossier detailing their operating procedures following a tip-off from a 'third party', believed to be a sharp-eyed employee at a printing shop in England.

Further humiliation will be suffered if it is announced in Paris that another as-yet-unidentified mole was the source of McLaren's suspicion regarding the moveable floors on the Ferrari cars. Remember, too, that the only previous spying scandal which deserves comparison to the current crisis revolved around two former Ferrari engineers being found guilty of revealing inside information to their new employers at Toyota.

Whatever the upshot of Thursday's hearing, the verdict will be devastating: F1 found guilty of failing to keep its own house in good order.


Pete Gill

Planet-F1