Fia To Meet Over F1 Spying Cases

The F1 spying row could come to a resolution today with the sport’s governing body the FIA meeting to discuss the two cases involving Renault and McLaren.

Renault will appear before the FIA to answer a charge of unauthorised possession of confidential McLaren technical data. The French team deny the information was used in their 2007 car.

McLaren, who have been found guilty on a similar charge and fined £47.5m, face further investigation by the FIA after being found in possession of confidential Ferrari documents.

Despite punishing the team in September, the FIA said it would investigate further to ensure that no Ferrari data appeared in next year’s car.

The FIA is expected to reach a verdict on Renault’s case today but a decision on McLaren’s fate is unlikely to be made until next week.

And on the eve of the hearing, McLaren were dealt a blow in their case against Renault when they were forced by the FIA to clarify allegations made about Renault in a document prepared by their lawyers.

McLaren submitted a dossier to the FIA which alleged that the files were discussed by up to 18 Renault F1 personnel, including a group of senior engineering chiefs and heads of department.

However McLaren was forced to admit that in fact ’13 Renault F1 employees had provided 18 witness statements and nine of them have so far admitted they viewed and discussed the confidential technical information belonging to McLaren’.

McLaren also said it was ‘wrong to say that the information was loaded on to 11 Renault computers. In fact, it was copied on to 11 computer discs by former McLaren employee Phil Mackereth.

‘A back-up copy of the material on Mr Mackereth’s personal directory was made on to an unknown number of Renault’s back-up servers/tapes.’