I think Alonso should have all his Drivers Championship points stripped!
Alonso implicated in FIA`s verdict
Friday 14th September 2007
Fernando Alonso is implicated in the FIA's findings behind their punishment of McLaren.
Reigning World Champion Fernando Alonso has been fully implicated in the FIA's findings behind their strict sanctions of McLaren in the spy scandal.
McLaren were stripped of all their Constructors' points for this season on Thursday and handed a record fine of 100million US dollars (£49.2million) as punishment.
In their 15-page judgment released on Friday, the FIA have published details of emails exchanged between Alonso and test driver Pedro de la Rosa proving they were in unauthorised possession of highly confidential technical information belonging to Ferrari.
One section of the report reads: "The emails show unequivocally that both Mr Alonso and Mr de la Rosa received confidential Ferrari information via (Mike) Coughlan.
"Both drivers knew that this information was confidential Ferrari information and that both knew that the information was being received by Coughlan from (Nigel) Stepney."
Mike Coughlan was suspended from his position as McLaren chief designer on July 3, the same day Ferrari sacked Stepney as their head of performance development.
It is understood Stepney forwarded a 780-page technical dossier to Coughlan, an accusation the former continues to deny.
But one email exchange between Coughlan and de la Rosa and then de la Rosa and Alonso is particularly damning.
It initially relates to the weight distribution of Ferrari's cars as set up for the Australian Grand Prix on March 18.
According to the FIA release, de la Rosa emailed Coughlan on 21 March requesting specific details of Ferrari's car.
"Hi Mike, do you know the Red Car's Weight Distribution? It would be important for us to know so that we could try it in the simulator. Thanks in advance, Pedro.
"p.s. I will be in the simulator tomorrow."
In his evidence given to the WMSC, de la Rosa confirmed that Coughlan replied by text message with precise details of Ferrari's weight distribution.
The Spaniard then passed that information on to Alonso on March 25, 2007.
De la Rosa then pertinently concludes: "All the information from Ferrari is very reliable.
"It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic - I don't know what post he holds now.
"He's the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi (Raikkonen) was stopping on lap 18.
"He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our chief designer, and he told him that."
In his email exchange with Alonso, de la Rosa also refers to tests being carried out on a flexible wing in which he says is "a copy of the system we think Ferrari uses".
An April email exchange between de la Rosa and Coughlan referring to Ferrari's braking system results in the latter stating: "We are looking at something similar."
The FIA conclude: "This latter statement strongly suggests the McLaren system was being worked on from a position of knowledge of the details of the Ferrari system, which, even if the Ferrari system not being directly copied, must be more advantageous to McLaren than designing a system without such knowledge."
The FIA also highlight evidence from Ferrari, originating from the Italian Police, and is the result of an official analysis of telephone, texts and email contacts between Coughlan and Stepney.
Between the period March 21 to July 3, Coughlan received 23 calls from Stepney's mobile, with four made, while Coughlan received 124 texts from Stepney, and sent 66.
The FIA note that contact increased during a test carried out by Ferrari in Malaysia at the end of March, and in the run-up to and during the Australian, Malaysian, Bahrain and Spanish Grands Prix.
The FIA state: "The new evidence regarding the number and timing of the contacts makes it far more likely that there was a systematic flow of Ferrari confidential information to Coughlan leading to the conclusion that the illicit communication of information was very likely not limited to the transmission of the Ferrari dossier discovered at Coughlan's home on 3 July 2007."
McLaren argued that any information received was not used and did not enhance their car, but the FIA countered they were "entitled to treat possession of another team's information as an offence meriting a penalty on its own if it so chooses".
They also state that "Coughlan's actions were intended by him to give McLaren a sporting advantage".
In conclusion, the FIA report states: "The WMSC finds that a number of McLaren employees or agents were in unauthorised possession of, or knew, or should have known, that other McLaren employees or agents were in unauthorised possession of highly confidential Ferrari technical information.
"In addition, the WMSC finds that there was an intention on the part of a number of McLaren personnel to use some of the Ferrari confidential information in its own testing.
"The evidence leads the WMSC to conclude that some degree of sporting advantage was obtained, though it may forever be impossible to quantify that advantage in concrete terms."
:stupid:
