BMW Sauber Handed Second Place In Constructor’s Championship

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — While Ferrari said in a statement it “is satisfied that the truth has now emerged” following the hearing of the WSMC, team boss Jean Todt thinks McLaren got off lightly.
Asked by NSSN if Ferrari planned to seek a harsher punishment, Todt replied: “We respect (the FIA’s decision), but we feel it is soft a penalty considering all the history.
“What was very important for Ferrari was if you are guilty, you must have a penalization. So, they were guilty and they had a penalization. We feel it is soft; the president of the FIA confirmed it was soft.”
Todt said that the legal actions on England and Italy against Mike Coughlan and Nigel Stepney would continue, as these are completely separate things to the FIA’s case.

• BMW Sauber isn’t gloating about inheriting second place in the constructors’ championship following McLaren’s disqualification.
“There have been two teams ahead of us all year and they are stronger than us,” Mario Theissen said. “We want to beat them fair and square, or at least get close to them. Even if we finish second in the record books to me it will still be third place.”

• McLaren could face further punishment next year if the FIA’s technical department determines that its 2008 car incorporates any Ferrari confidential information.
Ron Dennis is confident this won’t happen.

• Will this be a tainted championship if a McLaren driver perhaps wins in a car that has an unfair advantage? “No,” Mark Webber said. “They (the team) have kicked everyone’s butt this year. The drivers have been by far the best drivers and the team has done the best job.”

• About half the money from the McLaren fine will be distributed amongst the other teams, but just who gets what has not been decided yet. Max Mosley says the rest will go to a fund that brings on young racing drivers around the world.

• Flavio Briatore said at Spa that Renault’s driver lineup might be announced within two weeks. He said McLaren’s woes would not affect where Fernando Alonso ends up in 2008. “I don’t believe for one second that the [FIA penalty] decision...will influence Alonso, drivers or us,” he said. “It has nothing to do [with us].”

• Kimi Raikkonen’s third pole of the season was the 14th of his career and the 194th for Ferrari. With Felipe Massa starting second, this was the first all-Ferrari front row of the year.

• Visiting the paddock, Prodrive’s David Richards told Autosport magazine that his F-1 team is on hold until the new Concorde Agreement, which will define the situation of customer cars, is ratified.

• In response to questioning at Spa, McLaren boss Ron Dennis indicated that his team would probably not pursue its appeal to the FIA against the decision of the Stewards at last month’s Hungarian GP not to allow the team to be credited with the 15 points in the constructors’ championship for first and fourth places in the race.  The penalty was imposed after Fernando Alonso was found to have unfairly influenced the outcome of the race by blocking his teammate Lewis Hamilton in the pits during qualifying.

• Speaking to different press groups at Spa, FIA President Max Mosley managed to contradict himself about the role of McLaren drivers Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa. Mosley told one group that it would be “wrong” to punish the drivers, who had voluntarily come forward to reveal that they had circulated Ferrari secret information in text and email messages. Later, though, he said that he had personally been in favor of taking points away from the drivers because they could have benefited from using the stolen data.

• Asked if he and Pedro de la Rosa exchanged e-mails on technical matters, Lewis Hamilton said: “The last time I spoke to Pedro e-mail-wise was in Malaysia, and that was about a female.” One presumes that Mrs. de la Rosa would like to know who they were talking about!

• The final major test session of the racing season takes place at Jerez, Spain Sept. 18-21.

• McLaren has contacted the FIA about certain technical aspects of the Renault.
“If somebody tells me it’s the same [as McLaren’s spy case], I sue,” Renault’s Flavio Briatore told The Sunday Times. “Secondly, it’s not an investigation regarding myself and the team. Third, we have given all the information to the federation, at least when we found out something. This is it. It’s as simple as that. And I have given the evidence as well to McLaren.”