Ferrari spying may still be an issue
Quote selected text Published by clive April 15th, 2008 in Formula 1
The appearance of Ferrari’s radical new nose innovation at the Barcelona test on Monday confirmed that espionage could still be a factor at the Italian team.
Alleged Ferrari spy Nigel Stepney no longer works for the Maranello based team, but the technical secret about the ‘hole nose’ nonetheless emerged in the pages of an Italian magazine some ten weeks ago.
Autosprint broke the story about the nose, including sketches of the innovation, in its pages in February, raising suspicions that the leaking of confidential and sensitive design data has not stopped, notwithstanding Stepney’s firing and McLaren’s $100m fine.
According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, technical director Aldo Costa was ‘horrified’ about the leak, confiding that “very few” Ferrari workers even knew about the nose solutions when they were being tested in the wind tunnel.
Blick claims that an internal investigation into the leak is in progress.
Bookmark to:
- Renault vow ‘transparency’ for spy probe
- ‘Ferrari spy on me’ - Stepney
- Bernie crosses fingers ahead of spy hearing
- Spying has ‘always’ been in F1 - Newey
- McLaren bans Ferrari from team quarters
So Stepney has been pilloried despite denying he sent the dossier and there is still info coming out of Maranello. What a co-incidence two entirely different people giving out sensitive info within a few months of each other. Like Max it is hardly credible.
I think it is natural to expect spying at Ferrari, they seem to be doing some things the last few years that other teams will want to know about.
Notice, no one is spying at Super Aguri because they have no reason to.
I have written about this in my latest post at F1 Insight. Although I agree with Aracer that Ferrari, as a top team, will naturally be a target for attempted spying, the same is true of teams like McLaren, BMW and Renault. The matter of leakages seems much more prevalent with Ferrari than anywhere else. Maybe they just squeal louder when it happens.
Possibly they squeal louder, possibly they are more innovative and everyone wants to knock down the top banana.
I’m surprised it was an Italian magazine that leaked the nose details. That must have the Ferrari team unnerved, because they cannot now blame a foreigner.