renault say they didnt use it!

[stew-S160]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/63873

but so do Mclaren. yet there was a suspicion they did. so therefore, Renault need to be fined £100m and removed from the 2007 constructors list and their car thoroughly searched by the FIA for Mclaren IP.

fair is fair is it not.

[hostile17]

Renault's statement is very much in the vein same as McLaren's statements throughout the whole spy affair: yes, we admit we had the documents, we didn't use them, we didn't want them, they came from a rogue employee operating without the knowledge/approval of management and as soon as we found out we were in possession of another team's IP we reported it to the FIA and suspended said employee.

So, by all rights we should expect to see Renault hit with a $100m fine in December, docked all of their constructor's points and booted down to the a*se end of the pitlane.

Does anyone think this will actually happen? Really?

Edited by hostile17 on Friday 9th November 15:56

[Conian]

Yes fair is fair. Only the 100m would be reduced maybe depending on their budget compared to McLaren?

Oh how i await the replies from the McLaren fans on here who, despite 'their' team being the ones cheating, claimed it was all Ferrari's fault because they couldn't control one of their staff.

Tables turned... discuss...

[disco1]

Conian said:

Yes fair is fair. Only the 100m would be reduced maybe depending on their budget compared to McLaren?

Oh how i await the replies from the McLaren fans on here who, despite 'their' team being the ones cheating, claimed it was all Ferrari's fault because they couldn't control one of their staff.

Tables turned... discuss...

Renault make more £ than Merc don't they? Bigger fine surely?

[hostile17]

I think that the 'fault' is generally accepted by most reasonable McLaren fans (and I count myself amongst their number) to be 50/50 McLaren/Ferrari. Both teams demonstrated regrettable breaches of security and protocol, after all.

No, the problem was more along the lines of the severity of the fine. As was pointed out by many at the time, Railtrack got fined a 'paltry' £6m for the Hatfield rail disaster, which killed 4 people. Killed people. Ended their lives. So, in light of this how could the FIA justify a $100m fine when McLaren had killed no-one, hurt no-one and nothing (other than team pride) and had no proven Ferrari IP on their car?

Well, I guess one way they could justify it is to fine Renault in exactly the same manner.

[jamieboy]

hostile17 said:

Renault's statement is very much in the vein same as McLaren's statements throughout the whole spy affair: yes, we admit we had the documents, we didn't use them, we didn't want them, they came from a rogue employee operating without the knowledge/approval of management and as soon as we found out we were in possession of another team's IP we reported it to the FIA and suspended said employee.

So, by all rights we should expect to see Renault hit with a $100m fine in December, docked all of their constructor's points and booted down to the a*se end of the pitlane.

I guess that would be the case if there was evidence that Renault actually had used some info they got from McLaren (as McLaren used the info about the Ferrari floor), and if there was some evidence found that the info was being freely discussed within Renault (as with the emails in the McLaren case).

So if the two cases are the same, then they should get the same punishment - not necessarily the same fine, but a fine which is the same as a proportion of their F1 budget.

[flemke]

Conian said:

Yes fair is fair. Only the 100m would be reduced maybe depending on their budget compared to McLaren?

Oh how i await the replies from the McLaren fans on here who, despite 'their' team being the ones cheating, claimed it was all Ferrari's fault because they couldn't control one of their staff.

Tables turned... discuss...

IINM, no person ever said that "it was all Ferrari's fault".
Similarly, there is nothing to support your statement, "despite 'their' team being the ones cheating".

Rather, people pointed out that, if McLaren were held to be vicariously responsible for the actions of their employee, which supposedly brought the sport into disrepute and interfered with the competition, then it must follow that Ferrari too must be vicariously responsible for the actions of their own employee, whose actions indisputably initiated and contributed to that violation of the Sporting Regs.
Many, perhaps most, of us thought that such a charge against the corporate Ferrari was a feeble one, but it was no more feeble than the charge against the corporate McLaren.

The idea - that the same should apply against McLaren if their IP were illicitly taken to Renault - does not hold in this new situation. It is different in that, if the IP were in fact given to Renault, it would almost certainly have been handed over after the engineer had left McLaren and thus was no longer an employee for whose actions they had vicarious responsibility.
He would, supposedly, have stolen property from McLaren, which act has nothing to do with the FIA, and, as a Renault employee, he would have given stolen property to Renault, which has nothing to do with McLaren.

[flemke]

jamieboy said:

I guess that would be the case if there was evidence that Renault actually had used some info they got from McLaren (as McLaren used the info about the Ferrari floor), and if there was some evidence found that the info was being freely discussed within Renault (as with the emails in the McLaren case).

So if the two cases are the same, then they should get the same punishment - not necessarily the same fine, but a fine which is the same as a proportion of their F1 budget.

As righteously indignant as the Italians were about having been caught out with their illegal floor, the details of that all came out in the first hearing, when the WMSC determined that there was no case to answer.
The WMSC's draconian penalties after the second hearing only related to the physical dossier and the conversations amongst Stepney, Coughlan, de la Rosa and Alonso, which came after the flexi-floor affair was resolved.
Therefore your point about McLaren having "actually" used the Ferrari IP is not relevant, as that solitary actual use was effectively sanctioned by the FIA.
There has never been any evidence that McLaren "actually" used any other Ferrari IP.

Wrt the appropriate size of a fine, the size of a team's budget in and of itself is meaningless. It is true that Mosley tried to justify the $100M fine in proportion to the team's budget, but that was nothing more than the typical diversionary rhetoric.
If one were to accept the principle of proportionality in determining a fine, what would matter would be wealth, not budget. You could have two amateur racers with the same budget, one being rich and only indulging in a dilletante-ish flight of fancy, and the other being passionate and committed, but barely able to pay his bills. Giving the two the same fine because they happened to have the same racing budget would result in a huge difference in actual punishment and deterrent effect.

[jamieboy]

flemke said:

As righteously indignant as the Italians were about having been caught out with their illegal floor, the details of that all came out in the first hearing, when the WMSC determined that there was no case to answer.
The WMSC's draconian penalties after the second hearing only related to the physical dossier and the conversations amongst Stepney, Coughlan, de la Rosa and Alonso, which came after the flexi-floor affair was resolved.
Therefore your point about McLaren having "actually" used the Ferrari IP is not relevant, as that solitary actual use was effectively sanctioned by the FIA.
There has never been any evidence that McLaren "actually" used any other Ferrari IP.

I'm not sure you can divorce the two hearings - the outcome of the first was (IIRC) that there was no evidence that any info from the dossier had been used, but if any evidence came to light, then the FIA would have another look at the situation.

I guess the second point comes down to a definition of 'using' the information - whether you feel that it was not 'used' unless it was used to design a part that was strapped on the car, or whether discussing it via email was 'using' it.

The point about the floor, even though it was not part of the dossier, is that it shows that McLaren were quite happy to use some information which they were not entitled to have, which weakens their later argument that they wouldn't do such a thing.

Anyway, we've done this bit countless times now, so I'll just reiterate that if Renault are guilty of the same thing, they should receive a matching punishment. I take your point about the budgets, but I can't see any other reasonable way to calculate the amount of the fine. Should they compare the wealth of the parent companies (Renault vs Mercedes)? Or the wealth of their sponsors, or their parent companies?

[flemke]

jamieboy said:

I'm not sure you can divorce the two hearings - the outcome of the first was (IIRC) that there was no evidence that any info from the dossier had been used, but if any evidence came to light, then the FIA would have another look at the situation.

I guess the second point comes down to a definition of 'using' the information - whether you feel that it was not 'used' unless it was used to design a part that was strapped on the car, or whether discussing it via email was 'using' it.

The point about the floor, even though it was not part of the dossier, is that it shows that McLaren were quite happy to use some information which they were not entitled to have, which weakens their later argument that they wouldn't do such a thing.

Yes, we have been down this road a few times before.
I remain convinced that there is nothing whatsoever blameworthy in taking information that has been volunteered to you, which information evinces that a competitor is stealthily breaking the rules, and using that information - with the regulator, in the light of day - to illuminate the competitor's cheating.
If McLaren had, instead, used that information to fix such a device to their own car, then I'd agree that that would be illegitimate - in fact, doubly so. As they used it to flush out someone else's cheating - which act was both ethical and helpful to all the teams, not just to themselves - there is nothing to criticise in how they handled that, and there are no comparisons to be made with sneakily taking someone else's IP and exploiting it to make one's own car go faster.

In fact, I'm bound to challenge your use of the concept that they were "not entitled" to have that information in the first place.
The whistleblower first tried to alert the regulator to the floor design. When it appeared that the regulator was not prepared to act, the insider went to someone else in order to expose the device.
If one team is actually cheating, then all the teams are entitled to know about that.

[Ahonen]

Conian said:

Yes fair is fair. Only the 100m would be reduced maybe depending on their budget compared to McLaren?

Oh how i await the replies from the McLaren fans on here who, despite 'their' team being the ones cheating, claimed it was all Ferrari's fault because they couldn't control one of their staff.

Okay. You're absolutely right, they should be treated the same.

Ferrari wasn't fined and neither should McLaren be, obviously.

No arguments at all.

Yours,

A McLaren fan.

[mark69sheer]

I won't say that the tables are turned at all here.

What I will say is that McLarens arguments fell on deaf ears so therefore it is correct for the same penalty to apply here to Renault wether Renault are justified in their defence or not.

Its makes a real mockery of F1 really all this doesn't it.

As for the files being on old style floppy disks...so what! The laws of physics apply and are non variable and follow no timetable.

[stew-S160]

whistleblowing flemke, just thinking, what if they went to say, spyker, what then? £50 fine, slap on the wrist, off you go, dont do it again?
maybe stepney should have gone to spyker instead of coughlin?

[Adrian W]

Surely what is important now is why didnt Renault say something when the Mclaren judgment ws published, by waiting untill now they must be gulty of something else or if the FIA new earlier they must be!

[stew-S160]

Adrian W said:

Surely what is important now is why didnt Renault say something when the Mclaren judgment ws published, by waiting untill now they must be gulty of something else or if the FIA new earlier they must be!

well, Flavio sure did 'defend' and 'kiss up' to Mclaren a bit.

[andyps]

stew-S160 said:

whistleblowing flemke, just thinking, what if they went to say, spyker, what then? £50 fine, slap on the wrist, off you go, dont do it again?
maybe stepney should have gone to spyker instead of coughlin?

I don't think there was any suggestion that McLaren were punished for whistleblowing about the illegal Ferrari floor. Even the FIA have not managed to punish anyone for informing them that a team was operating against the rules so it wouldn't have mattered if Stepney had told Spyker, who then told the FIA. Except that Spyker might have had to check with their engine supplier before reporting it so might have forgotten the next level of reporting.

[stew-S160]

andyps said:

stew-S160 said:

whistleblowing flemke, just thinking, what if they went to say, spyker, what then? £50 fine, slap on the wrist, off you go, dont do it again?
maybe stepney should have gone to spyker instead of coughlin?

I don't think there was any suggestion that McLaren were punished for whistleblowing about the illegal Ferrari floor. Even the FIA have not managed to punish anyone for informing them that a team was operating against the rules so it wouldn't have mattered if Stepney had told Spyker, who then told the FIA. Except that Spyker might have had to check with their engine supplier before reporting it so might have forgotten the next level of reporting.

forgot for a mo that ferrari supplied spykers engines, my bad.
my point was that had it been a smaller team doing the whistle blowing, none of what has happened would have happened. well, certainly not the way it has anyhow.

[LocoBlade]

It appears now that at least 15 Renault employees examined the information, including the chief designer and several other senoir technical figures.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/63878

Doesn't sound a lot different to what Mclaren did TBH, if anything more people may be involved here than at Mclaren, the only difference is there's no smoking gun (yet?) in terms of an email train or other evidence of Renault employees actively using the data as there was with the Alonso / De la Rosa exchange.

If this is true I can't see Renault getting away with much less than Mclaren though. Again though it reinforces the wide-held belief that in reality this kind of thing is commonplace in F1 and that in some ways Mclaren (and now possibly Renault) have drawn the short straw and will be made to look like the bad guys to try and discourage it in future.

What's the betting if we could see all the overtime sheets for each team in the last couple of months, that members of their IT department would be quite commonplace on this list, making sure any traces of similar information no longer exists on their own systems!

[andyps]

stew-S160 said:

forgot for a mo that ferrari supplied spykers engines, my bad.
my point was that had it been a smaller team doing the whistle blowing, none of what has happened would have happened. well, certainly not the way it has anyhow.

I don't think it would have made any difference who had made the complaint about the floor - it certainly sholdn't have done and as I said, to the best of my knowledge McLaren were not punished for reporting the illegality.

[anonymous-user]

It's interesting that Renault used some of the info on those floppy's to clarify the legality of a damper system with the FIA, and the FIA decided that it was an illegal device. So just as with the McLaren-Ferrari issue, the FIA has deamed a part to be illegal as a result of inapropriately received data from another team.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/63874

"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."

I cant see how the FIA can wriggle out of this one, the similarities are enormous.