Team bosses fear scandal fallout

[Teutone]

Team bosses fear scandal fallout
Eurosport - Mon, 10 Sep 15:36:00 2007
Formula One's spying scandal is threatening to damage the sport's image permanently, according to a number of team bosses.

The scandal, which centres around confidential Ferrari technical documents being found at the house of McLaren's now suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan, has become the story of the season.

Exclusion from the championship this year and next is the potential penalty for McLaren if they are found guilty of using the information to further the development of their own car by the FIA World Motorsport Council in Paris on Thursday.

And Williams believes that with more negative press dedicated to Formula One than at any other time in recent memory, the entire sport is in danger of losing out on fans and sponsors.

"This may cost Formula One some business," said Williams. "Hopefully not, but it's in every newspaper most days of the week.

"I just have a bit of concern that if it goes on much longer, it will deter sponsors who are currently present in F1, or who are close to coming in."

Ferrari team boss Jean Todt kicked off the whole scandal by launching criminal proceedings against the team's former technical manager Nigel Stepney for leaking the information to Coughlan.

But now even he has acknowledged that the sport will be damaged, no the outcome of the case.

He likened the potential side effects to those suffered in Cycling's Protour recently, which has seen top sponsors the Discovery Channel and Gerolsteiner, among others, withdraw support for their teams following a raft of drugs offences among the top riders.

"I mean, it's a taint on the sport," said Todt. "Every time that there is a bad controversy, and it can happen in athletics, it can happen with gold medal winners, it can happen with cycling, it can happen with football, and now it is something that is happening in Formula One.

"I think that we are sorry that it is happening in Formula One, but we are in the position where we want the truth to appear. And that's all that we want, and all that we have been working on and doing, and we are confident that the truth will come through."

Jamie O'Leary / Eurosport

[mcbear]

Team bosses should be more concerned with the actions of the Bernie Max Show if there is a true concern over the Sport's permanent image. After the 2005 US Grand Prix silliness and the whoring of the sport to the highest bidder, damn tradition, whether or not two guys decided to swap documents seems rather pedestrian by comparison.