Hamilton could be thrown out of next year's world championship
Lewis Hamilton could be thrown out of next year's world championship after Formula One's rulers found evidence of Ferrari designs being used on the 2008 McLaren car.
The FIA's World Motor Sport Council had hoped to draw a line under the sport's most contentious dispute at their meeting in Monte Carlo yesterday, but instead decided to call McLaren back before them at a special hearing on February 14.
Such is the significance of the data collected during an inspection of the British team's Woking factory — a process undertaken by high-powered technical and legal experts at a cost of up to £1million — that Hamilton must endure an agonising wait to learn his fate.
Although he and former teammate Fernando Alonso were not penalised in September when McLaren were fined $100m (£49.3m) and thrown out of the constructors' championship for using Ferrari secrets, FIA president Max Mosley yesterday confirmed that Hamilton would not escape sanction if the case is proven.
He said: 'If there is any negative finding about 2008, and it is a very big if, it will apply to everybody, the drivers and the team. It would only be based on their unfair advantage.' McLaren insisted that 'no confidential information has been incorporated within the team's 2007 and 2008 cars'.
The FIA have informed McLaren boss Ron Dennis which aspects of next season's design they think could be derived from the information exchanged between sacked Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney and McLaren's disgraced chief designer Mike Coughlan earlier this year. If the car is found to incorporate elements based on leaked data, McLaren will have two months to remove the offending material from their prototype car. Doing so could save them from a penalty, or at least minimise it.
But tinkering with the design is a potentially huge blow to their, and Hamilton's, on-track performance.
Mosley said: 'Under the sporting code anything is possible, from no action at all, through to a reprimand, through to exclusion from the championship.'
McLaren are desperate for 'closure' after a damaging few months, yet their troubles appear endless, with a picture emerging of them as incompetent at best and deeply corrupt at worst.
Nor will the furore help Hamilton, who attended last night's FIA gala dinner here, win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award tomorrow, though there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on his part.
McLaren's supporters will claim that Mosley is merely pursuing a personal vendetta against Dennis.
He is angered by the accusation and yesterday announced that the FIA are suing ITV commentator Martin Brundle for describing their conduct as a 'witch-hunt' in his Sunday newspaper column.
Mosley and Dennis are not friends, but that should not hide the fact that McLaren have repeatedly been economical with the truth. They originally claimed that only Coughlan knew about the Ferrari dossier, only for it to be proven that the information was disseminated much wider.
And two weeks ago, in a leak to the press, they fabricated the extent of the classified McLaren information in Renault's hands in the second F1 spy row of the year, which went before the council on Thursday.
Mosley added: 'It is pure speculation whether the leak was an attempt to make the Renault affair look comparable to the Ferrari affair because the 780 alleged drawings was pure fiction. To put it bluntly, it was a barefaced lie.'
While McLaren's smearing of Renault is inexcusable, it remains bizarre that Renault were deemed guilty yet not even fined a penny.
After all, the engineer in question, Steve Mackereth, took 11 floppy disks when he left McLaren for the French manufacturers, including four drawings which were viewed by his Renault colleagues.
Admittedly, as yesterday's disclosure of the full findings showed, the espionage was not on McLaren's grand scale, but how can the FIA fail to levy any fine or dock points? For Hamilton, there may be no such reprieve.
Hamilton could be thrown out of next year's world championship | the Daily Mail
Lewis Hamilton could be thrown out of next year's world championship after Formula One's rulers found evidence of Ferrari designs being used on the 2008 McLaren car.
The FIA's World Motor Sport Council had hoped to draw a line under the sport's most contentious dispute at their meeting in Monte Carlo yesterday, but instead decided to call McLaren back before them at a special hearing on February 14.
Such is the significance of the data collected during an inspection of the British team's Woking factory — a process undertaken by high-powered technical and legal experts at a cost of up to £1million — that Hamilton must endure an agonising wait to learn his fate.
Although he and former teammate Fernando Alonso were not penalised in September when McLaren were fined $100m (£49.3m) and thrown out of the constructors' championship for using Ferrari secrets, FIA president Max Mosley yesterday confirmed that Hamilton would not escape sanction if the case is proven.
He said: 'If there is any negative finding about 2008, and it is a very big if, it will apply to everybody, the drivers and the team. It would only be based on their unfair advantage.' McLaren insisted that 'no confidential information has been incorporated within the team's 2007 and 2008 cars'.
The FIA have informed McLaren boss Ron Dennis which aspects of next season's design they think could be derived from the information exchanged between sacked Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney and McLaren's disgraced chief designer Mike Coughlan earlier this year. If the car is found to incorporate elements based on leaked data, McLaren will have two months to remove the offending material from their prototype car. Doing so could save them from a penalty, or at least minimise it.
But tinkering with the design is a potentially huge blow to their, and Hamilton's, on-track performance.
Mosley said: 'Under the sporting code anything is possible, from no action at all, through to a reprimand, through to exclusion from the championship.'
McLaren are desperate for 'closure' after a damaging few months, yet their troubles appear endless, with a picture emerging of them as incompetent at best and deeply corrupt at worst.
Nor will the furore help Hamilton, who attended last night's FIA gala dinner here, win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award tomorrow, though there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on his part.
McLaren's supporters will claim that Mosley is merely pursuing a personal vendetta against Dennis.
He is angered by the accusation and yesterday announced that the FIA are suing ITV commentator Martin Brundle for describing their conduct as a 'witch-hunt' in his Sunday newspaper column.
Mosley and Dennis are not friends, but that should not hide the fact that McLaren have repeatedly been economical with the truth. They originally claimed that only Coughlan knew about the Ferrari dossier, only for it to be proven that the information was disseminated much wider.
And two weeks ago, in a leak to the press, they fabricated the extent of the classified McLaren information in Renault's hands in the second F1 spy row of the year, which went before the council on Thursday.
Mosley added: 'It is pure speculation whether the leak was an attempt to make the Renault affair look comparable to the Ferrari affair because the 780 alleged drawings was pure fiction. To put it bluntly, it was a barefaced lie.'
While McLaren's smearing of Renault is inexcusable, it remains bizarre that Renault were deemed guilty yet not even fined a penny.
After all, the engineer in question, Steve Mackereth, took 11 floppy disks when he left McLaren for the French manufacturers, including four drawings which were viewed by his Renault colleagues.
Admittedly, as yesterday's disclosure of the full findings showed, the espionage was not on McLaren's grand scale, but how can the FIA fail to levy any fine or dock points? For Hamilton, there may be no such reprieve.
Hamilton could be thrown out of next year's world championship | the Daily Mail