suspended mclaren employee is mike coughlan

[www.autosport.com]

Looks like some of the things that have been dismissed by certain people have now been confirmed.

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2007 01:32PM by tripleM.

Looks like we will not know the truth now as its been agreed to keep it out of court and away from the public

Looks like mclaren may still be in trouble with the FIA...

[www.f1-live.com]

The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between March and July 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code.

'McLaren Mercedes had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Scuderia Ferrari, including information that could be used to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and/or run a 2007 Ferrari Formula One car.'



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2007 05:52PM by y2cwr2005.

Nice.. 1 great driver cannot win the championship without (and even with) changing engine rules few times during seasons 04 05 to make sure that he wont get punishments so now have to eliminate competition with taking away some points/ban them from 2 or more races???


Anyway maybe not totally without reason.. Anyone regonizes those ugly cuts on winglets in front of sidepods?: [f1.gpupdate.net]

Kimi, so, Massa Fernando Sebastian is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?

oh well that could be this year ruined due to the actions of 2 men.

But whilst mike was working ay mclaren they are resonible for his actions so even if the plans were not used a mclaren employee had them so I can see where the fia are coming from.

I think they will be banned for the rest of the year if found guilty.

It will destroy mclaren i can see sponcers pulling out as they will not want to be seen to support a team with a bad rep.

Maybe we should wait 2 weeks?

Who knows what twists are still left?

---

Reading things online it looks like Mike had the plans in March before the 1st gp, and they are saying thats how mclaren knew about the moveable floor.

Even though mclaren did not use the plans for their car it could be that they used them to work out the ferrari's short comings.

We should know soon though but there is a high possibilty mclaren will be dq for the rest of the year if found guilty.

They would appeal and race the rest of the year until a retrial.

If the above happened I think they would have to rename the team for next year as their rep will be ruined tbh it has already.

Personally i expect Mclaren will be found guilty only as responsible for employees behaviour, as FIA, history shows Ferrari bias, have said Mclaren are co operating. They get docked enough points to decide championships. It strikes me as strange that an employee looking for a new job elsewhere would risk criminal charges and his career to help the team he was leaving. As for Stepney none of what has been said seems to sound right Ferrari are certainly hiding internal staff issues maybe this is a way to stop Stepney and a team of engineers leaving for someone else, discredit him first scare the others to toe the line till a decision over Brawn is made. Maybe he is as guilty as described but i doubt it is that simple.

If FIA favour Mclaren punishment what effect does it have on F1? The new younger fan base it needs and obviously its effect on the British fan?

I will certainly lose interest Ferrari dominated too long much of which was down to them doing a better job but two often the FIA and courts get involved looking to punish anyone else.




Helmet Courtesy of Dangerous.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.0, ASUS P5N32-SLI E
896MB nVIDIA GeForce BFG 260GTX OC, 19"SONY SDM-HS95PR
4GB DDR2 800MHz

Ferrari Dominated through FIA rulings? I don't really seem to recall the FIA getting involved with Ferrari during the seasons from 2000 - 2004. In fact if the FIA did get involved in Ferrari's Dominance of those years, it was more along the lines of trying to slow the team down through rule manifestations and technical imperviations which lead to such catastrophes as the single tire rule. All in an effort to prevent Ferrari and Schumacher from Dominating until the turn of the decade which was very likely.

Regardless, my thoughts about this current situation are as such. I personally don’t really think there is some Diaspora of technicians that wish to leave Ferrari. This stuff is simply speculation.

What has happened (speculation again) is stephany with a small group of technicians at most (5) are disgruntled that another section of Ferrari have gotten promotions while they were left in the dust. In deed they were probably aware of these promotions prior to Michael Schumacher's Engine malfunction in Japan last year. Seems to all fit a little neater now to be honest with you. Two Technical failures in Brazil and Japan for Schumacher... Yet Massa was completely fine? (when has that ever happened) White powder found in fuel tanks at Monaco? Ferrari's sudden drop in pace from Monaco to USA? Not to Mention, while every other Michelin runner of last year has been struggling this season, Mclaren seem to be right on top of things, even though they were no where last year. They have two new drivers to the team this year, one of which could not really help in the technical development until december of last year due to contractual commitments to renault. They have another driver who is completely new to the sport. And they have lost their long time chief designer, Adrian Newy to Redbull. Yet they have been capable of developing the best car in formula one? hmmmmm interesting.

I think we should be less concerned with "British Fans" and "Mclaren Fans" and more concerned about Justice and Sportsmanlike conduct. If it is found Mclaren have broken the law they should be punished. But more importantly the punishments should be equal and just for all. There is defiantly more at play here then just one disgruntled individual passing a binder full of information to a colleague of another company. Ferrari would not have taken legal action if it was simply about that. More importantly the FIA would not have charged McLaren Mercedes.

But we know the reason why mclaren were not ok last year, they could not get heat into the rear tyres, plus they should have won 3 races anyway but broke down. They have worked hard on reliablity and this is why they are in the position they are. This years mclaren is a development of last years car so they understand it better, last years car had problems with heat and tyres and the engine.

They worked hard over the winter and improved the car. Ferrari lost time this year due to 2 wind tunnel break downs. Also ferrari had problems getting heat into the tyres which they have worked on. Ferrari also had to change the floor on the car as it may have been illegal.

Mclaren may have won races this year but they have not got the better car thats for sure, even the races they have won are due to the fact ferrari under performed. Ferrari were never expected to go well in monaco due to the long wheel base.

Look at bmw then they also switched tyres and they are faster than last year as well, so by your accounts they must have cheated as well

I think we will find there are many more people involved than the 2 that have been mentioned.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2007 03:35PM by marcl.

"More importantly the FIA would not have charged McLaren Mercedes."

They are an entrant. FIA deals only with entrants.

---

If they do anything to mclaren they will have to do the same to spyker as they had the rbr plans which seems to have been totally over looked.

Mclaren will be done simply beacuse an employee had the plans so that means mclaren had access to them wether they used them or not.

Weren't mass dampers known at the beginning of the last season but only dealt with once Ferrari were trailing. Whatwvwer happens it should all be made publicthis is a sport ultimately paid for by the fans. If there are no fans there wouldn't be F1. I thought the generally accepted reason for Mclaren wasn't as good last year as this was precisely the reason it adapted better to the new tyres, the way it handled its tyres. Don't forget they had to keep the same set all race last year. There certainly is more at play than one disgruntled Ferrari employee yet only one has been suspended then fired.

Aren't Ferrari big enough to do proper investigations into why the cars failed last year. Surely the all mighty reds would have worked out some thing was wrong then. Many experts have given credible reasons for why Monaco wasn't a good day for Ferrari, long wheelbase nible. As a fan you should know the difference is small and will swing back and forth between races.

Still don't understand why you would take the risk as Coughlan surely has done something wrong to benefit a team you wanted to leave.

Not a ferrari fan are you Marco. For the record i support Lewis watched him last year and been hooked since as well as Williams, used to live near the factory when i was young and BMW because they are amazing road cars.




Helmet Courtesy of Dangerous.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.0, ASUS P5N32-SLI E
896MB nVIDIA GeForce BFG 260GTX OC, 19"SONY SDM-HS95PR
4GB DDR2 800MHz

"If they do anything to mclaren they will have to do the same to spyker as they had the rbr plans which seems to have been totally over looked."

My understanding is that Spyker received the plans anonymously and went straight to the FIA even if the intention was to question STR legality.

---

From what I remember Spyker were given the plans from someone at rbr who was sacked.

In Sepang they tried to get STR banned by giving the race officals the plans to prove the rbr and str was the same, that was the 1st time anyone was informed they had the plans.

The fact that they had the plans is the same as what mclaren are in trouble about really. No matter who they informed the point is they still had the plans and who is to say they still dont have a copy.

This still doesnt make any sense:

1) How did Mclaren adapt so quickly to the Bridgestone tires? Sure they worked hard during the off season, is that to say everyone else procrastinated? Yes BMW did make up leaps and bounds over their performance last year, but they are still lagging about .500s a lap behind the front runners. That is about where Mclaren should be as well. If anyone believes that from Bahrain onward Mclaren were .500s a lap behind Ferrari then you havent been watching F1 this year.

2) We know about Mclaren's Tire situation last year. However, and again, those were on Michelin tires. Furthermore if it takes a driver 5 - 8 races to get used to a set of tires (as reported by Alonso and Raikkonen) then surely to adapt a car to the tires in a couple of months is unlikely. I seem to recall a discussion that took place on this forum a number of years ago. It was dealing with Ferrari and Michelin during the dubious 2005 season of single tires. Some people had claimed that "Oh yes, Had Ferrari been on Michelins, they would Dominate" while the majority of the people refuted with "The Ferrari has NOT been built to run on Michelins, they would destroy the tire." - If this McLaren is a gradual evolution of the very Mclaren built for Michelin tires as some people are indicating, then Mclaren should not be anywhere near Ferrari at the moment. On the Flip side BMW are that quick simply because they have designed a car for these tires, their driver line up and technical team have been static and in place for the last two years. Mclaren has not had this static situation to enjoy, regardless of the effort they have put into place that is suggestive and circumstantual especially in Formula One.

Irregardless, something is going to happen this year which should change another dynamic of the sport. However, this sort of situation will become far more frequent due to the nature of the world we live in. I am simply hoping the FIA does not do something completely rediculous to Mclaren, however if found guilty a penalty should be paid, imo a three to four race ban - if found guilty. With a civil suit, indefimations, and criminal negligence being delt with outside of Formula one in court.

Keep the legal squabbling out of the sport. The FIA should focus after this situation is delt with on improving racing. My friends and I continue to laugh at the fact when Massa closed up to the BMW (or williams I forgot) in Britian, the rev limiter kicked in going down a straight away. That sort of thing will completely undue a sport in the long run.

@welshjim22, lol, how did I figure. However, in response to your question, of course I am a Formula One fan. Have been since 1995 (Roughly). And as for my favorite team. Well, I am human and therefore bleed red

BTW I am not trying to be negative over here, I am just noticing a lot of "Mclaren are innocent" and "Ferrari are to blame" remarks. I think we should all wait to actually find out what is going on before pointing a finger and accusing. We know there are currently two individuals in the center of this picture. If we want to speculate thats fine. But this is a legal matter and it should be dealt with factually as there is the reputation of a Formula One team and two individuals at stake.

Also, as for releasing all documents to the fans and so forth. I agree to a certain limit. In regards to the FIA everything should be disclosed at or once the hearing has taken place to the fans. However, in terms of the legal battle and investigations between Stephany and Ferrari and even Mclaren, which is occuring out of the sport, it should remain quite to prevent fan intervention in the case. Once or if this situation does go to trial then and only then should the informaiton be released. Until then let us not intervene in the continued investigation.

McLaren competitiveness isn't surprising once you disregard the paranoia about the 2007 Bridgestone tires being designed with only Ferrari in mind.

---

"1) How did Mclaren adapt so quickly to the Bridgestone tires? Sure they worked hard during the off season, is that to say everyone else procrastinated? Yes BMW did make up leaps and bounds over their performance last year, but they are still lagging about .500s a lap behind the front runners. That is about where Mclaren should be as well. If anyone believes that from Bahrain onward Mclaren were .500s a lap behind Ferrari then you havent been watching F1 this year."

Look how competetive Mclaren were in 2005 and they had the same tyres as the other Michelin teams, a team as well financed and long established as Mclaren would be quite capable of making big gains in a short time, look how well they turned their 2004 season around.
Why should Mclaren be at the same pace as BMW? They are a better team with a better car and imo with better drivers too.

Btw who's Stephany?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2007 07:09PM by mikef1.

I was about to say

1998 switch to bridgestone and won the championship
2003 switch to michelin and nearly won the championshop
2007 switched to bridgestone and leading.

mclaren are good at changing plus they have been testing the tyres all winter and the tyres are based on the 2005 tyres not the 2007 ones so everyone started from scratch.

Plus Ferrari no longer get the majority of support from Bridgestone that they enjoyed in the past, it was also said that Michelin favoured Renault and look how poorly they have done so far this year.