Even by F-1’s warped standards, McLaren’s $100 million fine was the talk of the weekend. It dwarfed the FIA’s previous biggest fine of $5 million (later halved) on the Turkish organizers for using the podium ceremony for a political message.
McLaren was stunned by the severity of the penalty handed down by the World Motor Sport Council in the spy-gate scandal.
“We do not believe that we should have been punished in this way,” team CEO Martin Whitmarsh said.
While the WMSC believed that the evidence pointed to a number of people within McLaren having knowledge of the illegally obtained Ferrari data, the team insists that only a few individuals knew: Mike Coughlan, Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso.
“The entire engineering team in excess of 140 people provided statements to the FIA affirming that they had never received or used the Ferrari information,” Ron Dennis said in a statement.
“We have never denied that the information from Ferrari was in the personal possession of one of our employees at his home. The issue is: was this information used by McLaren? This is not the case and has not been proven today.
“We are also continually asked if McLaren didn’t use the information, what was the reason for Stepney and Coughlan collecting all this data about Ferrari? We can only speculate, as neither Coughlan nor Stepney gave evidence at today’s hearing, but we do know that they were both seeking employment with other teams, as already confirmed by both Honda and Toyota.”
Dennis said the “evidence given to the FIA by our drivers, engineers and staff clearly demonstrated that we did not use any leaked information to gain a competitive advantage.”
The entire McLaren team might have been thrown out of both the 2007 and 2008 seasons, but F-1 czar Bernie Ecclestone fought hard to keep the team in the championship.
The WMSC, including Max Mosley, was indeed close to imposing the two-year ban. Twice during the hearing the other teams’ observers were asked to leave the room. Minutes later, after this happened the second time, one Web site ran the headline “McLaren out in 2007 and 2008” and this was immediately copied by a multitude of Web sites. They were wrong, however, as Ecclestone then convinced the council to adopt the punishment actually meted out.
McLaren may be prepared to forgo an appeal and pay the fine if it helps brings closure to the whole spy scandal and is good for F-1 in general.
“Conservatively, that process would be a year to two years,” Dennis said when asked about the appeal. “Trying to balance out everything, I don’t think we should dedicate a resource to such a counterproductive process for F-1.
“No matter how beaten up I am, and no matter how kicked around I am, the fact is that I love F-1. And if the right thing for F-1 is to seek closure...and if the right way forward is to act...in the interests of F-1, then we will go down that path.”
McLaren’s annual turnover is about $450 to $500 million, and the company is debt free. Dennis said that if the fine were paid, it would not in any shape or form be funded from McLaren’s racing budget. McLaren had seven days to decide if it would appeal.
Dennis, Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone met at Spa to try to find a compromise to the entire mess including the possibility of legal action in Italy.