Some points (which are being universally debated)
1. Do they not photocopy machines at McLaren. If the team were involved why on earth would they copy the stuff at a local copy store than their own Headquarters?
2. Why is it always that Ferrari employees are the ones who sell off the data. I find it hard to believe that a employee can just walk out with a 700+ page book and no one knows about it.
3. The fact that Nigel & Mike both approached Honda for potential future employment states that they were looking for a change and were possibly planning to use this data for their new team.
4. The McLaren was a quick car when it was launched, not as quick as the Ferrari but quick enough to win races on its own account, given the right conditions. Had they used the so called data from Ferrari they would have benefitted from it and it would have shown on their on track performances. But the gap (about 0.3 sec per lap) has remained constant between the two teams, hence the benefit is clearly not there.
5. Any F1 car is designed a year in advance. When and if McLaren got the data, it would have been very difficult to incorporate it into its own car, because the cars are always fundamentally different. McLaren invited the FIA to scrutinize their cars and this is proof that they are clean.
6. I don’t think highly of the FIA, least of all Mad Max, but for once there seems to be sanity in their decision.
Todt is a bad looser. He cannot come to terms that they are going to loose a third straight championship, hence he is making all the noises about things which he should keep mum on. Example, during the Ozzy GP McLaren pointed out that Ferrari were cheating by having movable floors, and the FIA banned those. Ferrari did loose some ground due to it, but ever since they have been grumpy about the whole episode.
Do note that both Nigel and Mike were colleagues during the Benneton days and had worked on the controversial traction control system on the Benneton in 93/94. They know how to bend the rules and get away with it, but this time they got caught red handed.
My two cents.
Last edited by RacingForIndia : 30th July 2007 at 09:33.
Reason: Some statements were in the wrong context.
|