The “confession” by McLaren yesterday looks rather damning on the face of it. But it is well known that to stop getting punished you have to confess, even if you didn’t do it. When you read between the lines, McLaren have actually confessed to very little.

In terms of “copied” Ferrari information, the smoking gun is there — but for stuff that everyone had access to. So the 2008 McLaren has a longer wheelbase? Big deal — it wasn’t exactly top secret that the F2007 had a long wheelbase. It was well known long before the start of last season.

And reading between the lines, it looks as though McLaren’s new braking system employs the famous double-rear master cylinder with spring — information that the FIA leaked!

What is really telling about all of this is the way the two branches of FIArrari (the racing team that masquerades as the FIA and the governing body that calls itself Ferrari) have reacted to this — in complete tandem, would you believe! You couldn’t make it up.

Every single movement by Max Mosley, the FIA and the World Motor Sport Council on this Stepneygate scandal since June has been calculated to maximise the embarrassment of the McLaren team as an organisation and Ron Dennis as an individual.

The first WMSC meeting stuck the knife in. Then in September Mosley inserted it further. Last week he gave the knife a jolly good twist when it was revealed at the last minute that they weren’t going to clear the McLaren car until February. They had said they were going to judge on it last week. “Just kidding Ron! We’re going to make you suffer for a few months yet.”

By then, it had become obvious what game the maFIA was playing at all along. There was no way McLaren could risk waiting until just a few weeks before the start of the season to find out if their car would be given the all-clear — particularly given the FIA’s hostile attitude towards the McLaren team. There was every chance that the car would not have been cleared, McLaren would have been thrown out of the Championship.

In the end, McLaren were faced with no choice but to fall on their own sword rather than go through Max Mosley’s bizarre torture methods. The fact that the FIA have now offered to close the matter as a result of this apology speaks volumes. The FIA and Ferrari were not interested in justice one iota. If they were, they would not seek to close the matter just because McLaren said sorry. They would continue to investigate the car and meet in February as promised.

Rather, the FIA and Ferrari’s main goal was to embarrass McLaren in the most public, torturous, long-winded way possible. Having now maximised that embarrassment, they have decided they have had enough of their games and are now “graciously” offering closure.

Pathetic.

The FIA (that’s short for Ferrari International Aid, in the words of Max Mosley himself!!) yesterday released transcripts of the World Motor Sport Council meeting where McLaren were fined one hundered meellion beellion treelion dollars about £15m.

The FIA promised that an confidential information would be removed from the documents before being published. Well, they certainly blacked them out. But simply copying and pasting the black areas revealed all! F1Fanatic has the story.

It is utter incompetence. Essentially, to remove the secret information, the FIA used a similar technique that internet users use to hide “spoiler text” when discussing films and the like. Highlight the text below, as they say.

Max Mosley would be hilarious if he wasn’t so pathetic!

So now all of Ferrari’s super secret information has been leaked for all to see. Not only this, but other sensitive information — such as Mike Coughlan’s salary at McLaren — has also been revealed. Who needs any rogue Nigel Stepney-style figure when you can get the FIA to do all the work for you?

The FIA have since fixed their documents, but of course it is too late. The originals are all over the internet now. On websites like major Dutch broadcaster RTL.

Do I envisage Max Mosley being fined $100m dollars for bringing the sport into disrepute because of this? Not a chance — even though he deserves it more than anyone else!

What was that you say? A double-rear master cylinder with spring? Very interesting!…

I am quite reluctant to write about the week’s off-track events in the world of Formula 1. Originally I wanted things to settle down before I wrote anything. But ever since then, things have steadfastly refused to settle down. A few people come along to kick some dust into the air and the whole issue is flipped on its head again. Hopefully things have at last settled down now.

First things first. The evidence against McLaren was fairly damning. In the original hearing, McLaren’s defence was that Mike Coughlan was a rogue employee and that no other employee had access to any confidential Ferrari information. Furthermore, most of the evidence pointed to Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan intending to use the documents at Honda, where they jointly applied for a job, rather than McLaren.

The new evidence demonstrates that there was, to an extent, an intention to use Ferrari information to guide development at McLaren. Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso also knew about the documents and discussed information from them. And, as the WMSC pointed out (points 3.10, 3.11), it is highly likely that other employees must have known about this.

Otherwise, the implication is that Pedro de la Rosa has the sole say on which weight distributions get tested on the simulator and whether to try out a special type of gas on the tyres. Common sense says that somebody else other than the test driver is involved in these decisions.

However, this also conclusively proves that Ferrari information was not flowing among McLaren employees freely. My guess is that Mike Coughlan probably knew that he would end up in big trouble if enough people found out that he had special access to Ferrari information.

It is notable that Pedro de la Rosa — somebody who Coughlan will have known since his days at Arrows — is at the centre of all the email conversations. He was clearly being used as a kind of middleman between Coughlan and whichever other employees de la Rosa was working with.

Perhaps it was Coughlan’s intention to keep the Ferrari documents to himself all along. It is possible that he accidentally let it slip to his friend Pedro that he was in regular contact with Nigel Stepney. From then on, de la Rosa’s curiosity forced Coughlan to look up the documents and the rest we see in the emails. de la Rosa let his compatriot Alonso in on the secret. This explains why Lewis Hamilton had no incriminating emails.

And it is still possible that no other employees were aware of the Ferrari documents, although de la Rosa was providing helpful suggestions to his colleagues. In this sense, the McLaren team is no more guilty now than it was in July. It was just the actions of one (or two or three) rogue employees in a company which must have several hundred employees.

What the new evidence also reveals is that the Ferrari data was probably not much use to McLaren anyway. The revelations about weight distribution suggest that the Ferrari data was so different to what McLaren was used to that it was deemed useless for their car to the extent that Fernando Alonso doubted the accuracy of the data. It backs up what I said in my previous post on this subject — that it would be like putting together pieces from two different jigsaws.

There remains precious little evidence that McLaren actually did use any of the Ferrari data in the end. It’s a shame that, because of the way this story has been presented by the media, most people seem to think that McLaren were found guilty of “spying” on Ferrari and copying Ferrari parts and therefore having an illegal car.

McLaren were actually found guilty of the catch-all “bringing the sport into disrepute”. This (along with the fact that all of McLaren’s drivers provided the FIA with the relevant emails) explains why the drivers have kept their points while McLaren have lost all of theirs. It is close to the prediction I made in my previous post — that McLaren would be punished heavily while Hamilton (the story of the season, remember) would get away scot-free.

It is cynical of the FIA to do this. But there was not much else they could do. They had got themselves into a situation where they had to punish McLaren, but at the same time they did not want to jeopardise the story of entire season (the emergence of Lewis Hamilton and an exciting 3- or 4-way title battle). It is fair, though, for the drivers to keep their points as they have not been driving an illegal car.

A lot of the problem came down to the fact that the WMSC had to be seen to be punishing McLaren harshly. The media latched onto this story in an unprecedented way, and in many respects it was sensationalised and blown out of proportion. As such, the punishment is suitably sensationalised and overblown.

The $100 million fine was clearly designed to attract headlines, not least because this is nothing like what McLaren will have to pay. Some of the money will come out of the earnings they will lose as a result of being thrown out of this year’s Constructors’ Championship. McLaren won’t even have to pay half of the $100 million.

Another aspect of the coverage that has annoyed me is the way that it has become known as “spygate”. You will notice that I continue to call it by its original name, “Stepneygate”. Why? Because there was no spying going on! Mike Coughlan did not break into Maranello and hide in Jean Todt’s cupboard. He was approached by a Ferrari employee, Nigel Stepney, and from there a relationship was formed.

No bugs. No wiretaps. No covert break-ins. Just one Ferrari employee exchanging information with one McLaren employee. As far as I am concerned, this all began with the wrongdoing of a Ferrari employee, not the McLaren team. It begs the question once again — why were Ferrari not also charged with bringing the sport into disrepute? It was their employee who started this whole sorry episode. A rogue employee, yes — just like Mike Coughlan.

In fact, if anyone has been the victim of spying, it is Nigel Stepney. Earlier this year he claimed that he feared for his life after finding that he had been bugged. He says he was also involved in “Mafia-like” high-speed car chases and subsequently fled Italy.

This is where the whole tale becomes darker. Clive at Formula 1 Insight says that certain articles on some websites have mysteriously disappeared. I am certain of this as well, because I can not find any reference to Stepney’s car chase claims on the reputable F1 websites that I read, although I am certain that I must have read of them there.

This leads us nicely onto conspiracy theories. The FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias is well known and barely contested by anyone except the most blindly ardent Ferrari fans. For instance, the World Motor Sport Council — the body that found against McLaren on Thursday — has more representatives from Ferrari than any other team. The governing body’s constant attempts to rig the championship in Ferrari’s favour has done far more to place the sport into disrepute than anything Ron Dennis or McLaren have done.

A lot of people are asking why McLaren have been so harshly punished. One of the things that I am reading time and time again is that this sort of thing is apparently fairly commonplace in Formula 1 (although perhaps not to the same extent). I mentioned Peter Windsor’s comments on this blog before (near the bottom of the post).

Many are also drawing parallels with the incident that involved Toyota a few years ago. The FIA stayed well away from that — the whole matter was kept to the Italian courts.

So, why have McLaren been singled out in this way? The FIA’s pro-Ferrari bias can’t explain it all. The Toyota case also involved Ferrari blueprints. Obviously, the way the media latched onto the story explains part of it. But the media latched onto it for a reason. Ferrari pushed this for all it was worth and asked the FIA to get involved (unlike the Toyota case). But was there something else at play?

Many claim that FIA president Max Mosley has a personal vendetta against Ron Dennis. Mosley didn’t do much to change this perception with his comments at Spa yesterday morning (awkward photo opportunity or not).

It seems to me that Max Mosley’s comment that the large fine was designed partly to “bring… his [Ron Dennis's] budget down to the level of some of the other top teams in the paddock” backs up this notion that Mosley is anti-Dennis and pro-Ferrari. It sounds like a calculated plan to damage McLaren and help its rival teams.

Paul Stoddart certainly put in more than his two cents in a must-read interview with Pitpass. Stoddart was an old nemesis of Max Mosley, but he was hardly best pals with Ron Dennis either. It is notable therefore that Paul Stoddart should come out so strongly in Ron Dennis’s favour.

As an aside, note Stoddart’s claim that Max Mosley was the person who prevented there being a proper race at Indianapolis in 2005. He and Jean Todt were the only people who were not willing to compromise for the sake of the sport. Even Bernie Ecclestone was so incensed at Mosley’s stubbornness that he threw his phone at him. This is a real (albeit thoroughly unsurprising) insight into Max Mosley’s character.

Speaking of Max Mosley, Ron Dennis and character, another thing I have read about time and time again is the integrity of Ron Dennis. It is difficult to imagine Ron Dennis cheating or knowingly allowing cheating to go on in his team. He is clearly a proud individual — not just proud of himself, but proud of McLaren as well.

His company has a strict policy whereby the drivers are treated equally. This had already got the team into trouble at least twice this year (at Monaco and Hungary). Still, Ron Dennis refused to deviate from the policy.

Well, seemingly it is the equality stance that has landed McLaren in the deep doo-doo that it has found itself in. Apparently Fernando Alonso confronted Ron Dennis on the morning of the Hungarian Grand Prix. He told Ron Dennis about the incriminating emails and threatened to hand them over to the FIA unless he was made number one driver.

It is interesting that Ron Dennis preferred to hand over the information himself rather than capitulating to the powerful Alonso’s demands. He risked the reputation of his team to preserve the integrity of his team. Very, very admirable. Allegedly, Alonso and Dennis have not spoken since the incident.

It has to be said, this casts Alonso in a very bad light. Not only did he sit on incriminating information, but he also effectively blackmailed his boss in an attempt to get preferential treatment. I bemoaned Lewis Hamilton’s arrogance a few weeks ago, but Fernando Alonso is obviously not squeaky clean either.

I am just glad that there is a race tomorrow so that hopefully this whole sorry affair can be put to rest at last. For some light relief, check out this amusing animated version of the Stepneygate saga (via Ed Gorman). The captions are all in Spanish (or something), but I can still understand it all perfectly!

This has turned out to be McLaren’s annus horribilis when it should have been a year of celebration. After an unprecedented series of years in the doldrums on the track, McLaren have finally gone back to their winning ways. But off the track, it is difficult to imagine what else could have gone wrong.

It would have been bad enough had it just been the Stepneygate scandal from which McLaren (at the time) escaped any harsh punishment (probably rightly given the evidence there was at the time). But despite escaping punishment, the cloud of suspicion lingered, the media was not impressed and the tifosi were livid.

But there have also been rows over team orders and the status of the drivers which was kicked off by a deterioration in the relationship between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. McLaren probably have the two best drivers in the world in their cars, but instead of being an unmitigated success it has turned out to be a disaster.

At Hungary the FIA stepped in to prevent McLaren from scoring constructors’ points due to what was essentially an issue between the two drivers. It was harsh to levy such a heavy penalty on McLaren due to something that the team itself was seemingly quite peripheral to.

Then at Monza the race stewards decided to fine the team $50,000 for running a lightweight gearbox at the Hungaroring. The race stewards say that the new gearbox should have been crash tested prior to being run. For their part, McLaren say they were open with the FIA at all times about the existence their new gearbox.

Even if the FIA were not made aware of the situation, you have to ask the question: what were the Italian stewards doing passing judgement on something that happened two races ago? There is a discussion on this over at BlogF1. This is the equivalent of a referee in a football match giving a footballer a yellow card for something he did three weeks ago.

This is not to say that the FIA should not have punished McLaren. But the race stewards are not the people to do it. And the scrutineers at Hungary were seemingly okay with the new gearbox. It all looks a bit fishy to me, particularly since it happened at the Italian Grand Prix. Italy is, of couse, the country where Ferrari almost rivals Catholicism as the biggest religion.

A similar thing happened last year at the Italian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso was penalised for “blocking” a Ferrari that was a hundred metres behind him. The video of the entire lap is still available. Yes, that distant speck on the horizon is meant to be blocking Felipe Massa. The only people in the world who actually believe this are FIArrari.

But the FIA does not have to be in Italy to unfairly find in favour of Ferrari and against every single other team. Jackie Stewart rightly pointed this out today.

Now the whole Stepneygate saga is being opened up again, and the World Motor Sport Council is meeting on Thursday to discuss it. It will be a big day for Formula 1. Will the FIA cave into their pro-Ferrari instincts and award the Scuderia the Championship in the courtroom? Or will they act like the governing body of a sport and allow the Championship to be won and lost on the racetrack?

This series of events has prompted some to ask: are McLaren being picked on by the FIA this season? Craig has also taken a look at this. Many have mentioned the fact that FIA president Max Mosley has a pretty frosty relationship with Ron Dennis. The FIA deny that there is a witch hunt, but they would say that wouldn’t they?

For what it’s worth, I do not think that the FIA are deliberately singling out McLaren. At least, not beyond the extent we have come to expect from the FIA’s pro-Ferrari bias. But I think the adverse reaction to the original WMSC hearing in July has encouraged the FIA to punish McLaren heavily for the slightest wrongdoing.

The FIA are quite right to re-open the Stepneygate case if they think there is sufficient evidence. The integrity of the sport is important, and if McLaren are found to have benefited from Ferrari documents then they should face a heavy punishment.

But to me, it just does not stack up for the reasons I explained in my previous post on Stepneygate. The McLaren car had already been built by the time Mike Coughlan got his hands on the documents, and from then on basing developments on Ferrari blueprints would surely be like trying to piece together pieces from two different jigsaw puzzles.

But the whole saga became much more serious when drivers became involved. It is suggested that Fernando Alonso gained some insight into set-up data as a result of an email conversation with test driver Pedro de la Rosa, who is good buddies with Mike Coughlan.

This could prove crucial because beforehand McLaren had claimed that no employee was aware of the Ferrari information except for Mike Coughlan. If it transpires that de la Rosa and Alonso also knew, then there could be serious consequences.

A lot of people are asking themselves how the FIA could punish McLaren (if they are found guilty) without damaging the great story of this World Championship — particularly the emergence of the hugely exciting Lewis Hamilton. There is a nasty idea in my head that the FIA could end up punishing McLaren and punishing Alonso (because of the emails) but exonerating Hamilton. That way, Hamilton can win the World Championship while McLaren still get punished.

Yesterday Rory left a comment on this blog pointing out that the rumoured conversation between de la Rosa and Alonso was infact a fabrication. But that does not mean that the emails did not exist. They could have contained perfectly innocent information — or it could have been far worse than suggested by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

For the integrity of F1, and for the sake of this year’s fantastic World Championship, let us hope it is the former.

Update: See also Formula 1 Insight: Sport and Politics in Formula One.

Well, that was a surprise. The Italian Grand Prix seemed destined to be dull. Monza is an anomaly in today’s Formula 1. It is a fast slipstreaming circuit in an age where slipstreaming is effectively discouraged by the aerodynamic features of the cars. We saw last year how it is impossible for F1 cars to follow closely on a circuit like Monza.

But the funny thing about Formula 1 is that whenever you are ready to give up and declare overtaking to be officially impossible, away they go and start overtaking each other! Suzuka 2005 springs to mind as well. Okay, so Monza 2007 cannot hold a candle to Suzuka 2005. But it was still a pleasant surprise to see what was expected to be a processional race turn out to be quite interesting.

Most impressive of all was Lewis Hamilton. He might not be the nicest person, but his racing is absolutely superb. His start line battle with Felipe Massa was firm but fair, and a joy to watch.

And his amazing lunge on Kimi Räikkönen towards the end of the race is surely a contender for move of the year. It was not just the move itself, but the fact that it was so unexpected. After the race Räikkönen claimed that he saw Hamilton coming the whole time, but I’m not convinced. Räikkönen panicked and moved to the left as soon as Hamilton came up the inside.

It is interesting to note that Räikkönen’s instinct was to immediately move to the left to avoid a collision with Hamilton. Meanwhile, yet again, Hamilton saw an opportunity, pounced, and completed the move with 100% commitment. There is no hint that Hamilton will ever get intimidated by any situation. Most drivers who try that kind of move end up completely missing the chicane. But Hamilton negotiated it with perfection.

But, despite the impressive start and the flashy overtaking manoeuvres, Hamilton finished 2^nd. Alonso won the race because he put his foot down and kept it down for the entire race. Alonso’s second stint probably shows where he is more experienced. He just drove off from Hamilton, who seemingly fell asleep a bit. Alonso rightly saw that as the opportunity to tie the race up.

There is also the plain fact that Alonso was faster than Hamilton at Monza. Alonso qualified ahead of Hamilton despite having a heavier fuel load. Yet again, despite all of the hype surrounding Hamilton, there was somebody who was doing a better job (albeit not putting on a better show) than him.

As for Ferrari, it looks all over for them (on the racetrack at least). I think most people must have been expecting them to dominate at Monza, but there were well off the pace. The decision to put Räikkönen on a one-stop strategy was a clever risk that they almost pulled off. But Hamilton’s amazing overtaking manoeuvre put paid to that, and Ferrari had to make do with 3^rd.

And then there are the strange things going on with their cars. Massa got a suspension failure (although this may have been down to a first-lap collision), and Räikkönen had that strange (and scary) accident during free practice. (I would put a video here, but FOM have taken them all off YouTube. Great way to promote the sport, guys!)

BMW will be disappointed. I expected them to do better at Monza — to perhaps even be on the podium like they were last year. But both cars ended up being a minute behind the leader by the end of the race. The gap was less than half of that last time round.

Conversely, Honda will be pleased. They got into the final part of qualifying, which is just amazing given the season that they have had so far. And Button managed to bring the car home in 8^th, without any major retirements (apart from Massa) ahead of him. If only all those other circuits didn’t have those pesky corners!

All-in-all, Ferrari look as though they are out of contention. I did not expect that. On balance, McLaren have been the stronger team for most of the season, but Ferrari always looked like they were going to bounce back. But that bounce has always turned out to be a damp squib.

We did have an exciting four-way title fight, but now that is at best a three-way fight. And who would have expected Massa to be the first to drop out after the season he has had? Now Ferrari will have to throw their weight behind Räikkönen who has had plenty of off-days this season.

The saddest thing of all though is the fact that the World Championship could be won and lost in the World Motor Sport Council hearing on Thursday. After the exciting championship we have been given on the track, it would be terrible for it all to be taken away off the track.