More "Spying" to be Revealed in Formula One ?

[Midnight Rambler]

First, a preface. Many, myself included, have argued that the recent espionage ruling in F1 against McLaren was really all to do about politics and nothing to do with the fact that intellectual property is constantly being swiped/poached/whatever-you-wanna-call-it by one team or another from year to year. It's inevitable as the F1 design/engineering community is pretty much restricted to British engineers, with the occasional Italian or German here and there. But overall there is this general "pool" of talent that floats around from team to team through the years. And be it on paper, disk, or the brain, IP DOES travel with these engineers. A few years ago, McLaren aero engineer Nikolas Tombasis (spelling) invented the "zero keel" nose/wing arrangement, now he's at Ferrari and guess what ... "zero keel" despite Ferrari's insistence all the years that "zero keel" provided no gain. Hmmm ... maybe Nikolas told Ferrari something only McLaren knew before ? Duh. Now they (McLaren) bring out the "bridged nose" evolution of the "zero keel" treatment this year and teams are already copying it. Samo for the "viking horns" aero wings on the engine airbox, from a couple years ago, although funnily, McLaren has now decided to drop them. To wit, all the teams "poach" talent and designs from each other. Or better yet, to quote Sir Jackie Stewart - "They (the teams) all have dust in their shorts, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar." (Translation Note : "Dust" = "skidmarks")

Which brings me to the point of this thread ...

The rumor mill has churned since last Friday (and even a little before ...) that McLaren have evidence that they have had their own technical data and designs pilfered by a "rogue" engineer who left the company to go to work for Team Renault. The FIA's response was basically "Bring us the evidence and we will investigate it." Since, the FIA has said it was still waiting for such evidence and had nothing to date from McLaren. Now the rumor mill is really churning as it seems there has been enough evidence found that it warranted (legally) allowing McLaren and some experts under their hire to go in to Renault's team headquarters in order to go through their computer systems in search of any additional evidence.

This could blow F1 apart. Mad Max and the FIA have set a dangerous precedent with the huge fine on McLaren, and even worse for McLaren, the repercussions of being last in the paddock (only get 2 dinky garage stalls, no space to park the Billion$+ McLaren tech/hospitality "Garage Mahal", limited sponsor passes, no travel fees, etc.). Only McLaren and Ferrari would persist after such a fine (BMW, Toyota, & Honda might possibly, but would they be willing to spend it on F1 ?).

If Renault is found in a situation akin to that for which McLaren was punished, the FIA would have to fine them at least as much, which would definitely kill off Team Renault. Then you could see a huge snowball effect of fingerpointing and counter-investigations, as I doubt Flavio would take this sitting down. Surely Renault could find some of their tech which has been "transferred" to another team.

Is Ron Dennis so shrewd that he "took one on the cuff", to the tune of $100M, in order to once and for all close up his team's problems, knowing all the while he had the goods to counter-attack Max and the FIA for dirtying his team with the whole affair. Word is that McLaren, and esp. Dennis, are leaning towards not appealing the fine in an effort to put an end to the whole affair for the good of the sport, and to get on racing for the rest of this season. But methinks Ron REALLY wants his space back in the paddock for his big McLaren 'rig, and he will want all his sponsor passes and the like back also. Not to mention he will want Alonso out of his team (despite official word to date). So, somewhere in a remote location, Ron secretly meets with Max and the FIA with the damning Renault "evidence". To promote a "good guy" image out of all this he lets them (FIA) keep the $100M but demands back all the other "goodies" and also demands that Renault take back Alonso and pay for his salary this year. In exchange, the Renault "evidence" disappears and we never hear anything more about the whole affair. All for the good of F1, else it literally explode upon itself.

 

[darthsidious]

Sounds mostly like a conspiracy theory.... I doubt something that elaborate could happen.

Anyway, I agree with you that with the limited number of engineers moving around, some IP probably moves inadvertently. People doing the same thing at two different places will leverage their earlier knowledge and expertise. I'm fairly tolerant of that, and so should the FIA, unless it involves directly copying technology. What I don't think is legitimate is for there to be a deliberate and knowing exchange of information, not just about the technical aspects, but also about race strategy, etc, as seems to be the case here. When your drivers send emails discussing the opposition's tactics and technology, something is seriously wrong. Under these circumstances, McLaren certainly deserved to be punished harshly. I'm not trying to support ferrari - infact I'm sure they try industrial espionage as well, however, you have to punish those who are caught. If ferrari is caught in similar circumstances, I would support punishing them too.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

The "conspiracy" is playing out nicely ... so far. Flavio is sweating bullets, that's for sure, and it appears McLaren will not appeal - they have less than 24 hrs. to do so.

I agree that McLaren should have been nicked for knowing Kimi's pit stop strategy for the Australian GP, but that's about it. All the other Ferrari info they had really was of zero use to them. Best example was the weight distribution info that people keep harping on. It's meaningless because :

a.) First off, you'd have to know the other car's Cg to really do anything dramatic with regard to design replication.

b.) Weight distribution is mainly controlled nowdays by the use of ballast at the four corners of the car (and elsewhere).

c.) Ferrari is notorious for running cars which are longer than all the others, plus they normally don't shoot for 50/50 front to rear distribution but rather have been mostly using a 60/40 front-biased design for the past several years.

Now, if McLaren had gotten some info that might actually have been useful, such as a scoop on the design and workings of Ferrari's "rotary dampers" (aka shocks), that would be a major brouhaha. Funnily enough though, just watching the FOM's broadcast of the Spa GP got you that info for free. They showed and explained the system right on TV. Unbelievable, considering the current climate of paranoia and suspicion. And you can bet every other team now has the info as well ! Will Ferrari later whine that this is cheating also ?

I still think Alonso, De la Rosa, Stepney, and Coughlan should have been the only ones penalized in this affair. The penalty was actually for behavior that threatened the credibility of the sport (Rule 151.c), and these four people are the ones responsible for that, not Ron Dennis or the McLaren team. And if you propose guilt by association (with the drivers) for McLaren, then Ferrari should be booted too because THEIR rogue engineer, Stepney, started all of this. Again, the penalty was for untoward behavior, not for spying/espionage. No one has brought more damage upon the sport than the guy who started all of this just because he didn't get promoted to the position he thought he deserved.