Renault now in hot water
November 10th 2007 02:13
Now Renault will face the WMSC
Although McLAren are still very much involved as this time, they are the victims - with Renault accused of possessing McLaren technical data.
This matter has surfaced before - but now the FIA are pursuing it further
Here are the statements – make of them what you will.
FIA:
'Representatives of the Renault F1 Team have been requested to appear before a hearing of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Monaco on Thursday, December 6, 2007.
'The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between September 2006 and October 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code, the Renault F1 Team had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, including, but not limited to the layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren F1 car, together with details of the McLaren fuelling system, gear assembly, oil cooling system, hydraulic control system and a novel suspension component used by the 2006 and 2007 McLaren F1 cars.'
Renault:
On the 6th September 2007 it came to our attention that an engineer (Mr Phil Mackereth) who joined the team from McLaren in Sept 2006 had brought with him some information that was considered to be proprietary to McLaren.
This information was contained on old style floppy discs and included copies of some McLaren engineering drawings and some technical spreadsheets. This information was loaded at the request of Mr Mackereth onto his personal directory on the Renault F1 Team file system.
This was done without the knowledge of anyone in authority in the team. As soon as the situation was brought to the attention of the team's technical management, the following actions were taken:
- The information was completely cleansed from the team's computer systems and a formal investigation was started.
- We promptly informed McLaren of the situation and immediately after the FIA.
- Since then we have constantly and regularly kept McLaren and the FIA informed on all relevant findings.
- Mr Mackereth was immediately suspended from his position.
- The original floppy discs were impounded and sent to our solicitors for return to McLaren.
Our formal investigation showed that early in his employment with Renault Mr Mackereth made some of our engineers aware of parts of this information in the form of a few reduced scale engineering drawings.
These drawings covered four basic systems as used by McLaren and were: the internal layout of the fuel tank, the basic layout of the gear clusters, a tuned mass damper and a suspension damper.
Subsequent witness statements from the engineers involved have categorically stated that having been briefly shown these drawings, none of this information was used to influence design decisions relating to the Renault car.
In the particular case of the tuned mass damper, these had already been deemed illegal by the FIA and therefore the drawing was of no value.
The suspension damper drawing hinted that the McLaren design might be similarly considered illegal and a subsequent clarification from the FIA confirmed this based upon our crude interpretation of the concept.
ING Renault F1 Team have co-operated fully with McLaren and the FIA in this matter to the extent that the team has invited McLaren's independent experts to come and assess the team's computer systems and inspect the cars and the design records, to demonstrate that this unfortunate incident has not in anyway influenced the design of the cars.
ING Renault F1 Team have acted with complete transparency towards McLaren and the FIA, being proactive in solving this matter and we are fully confident in the judgment of the World Council.
The precedent with McLaren’s punishment has been set – Renault are staring down the barrel of a whopping fine and exclusion form the 2008 Constructor’s Championship.
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