Former McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan has finally spoken out on the Stepneygate spy saga of which he’s a key player.

The Briton’s version of the events comes as the World Motor Sport Council meeting that will decide McLaren’s fate carries on at the FIA’s headquarters in Paris.

"[Nigel Stepney] is not a close friend," Coughlan told Autosport when asked about his relationship with the ex-Ferrari chief mechanic who’s accused of leaking the technical data. "We are acquaintances who are both in the business of Formula 1 and have maintained cordial relations over the years. Stepney contacted me for the first time in five years on March 1st 2007.

"He subsequently telephoned me and informed me that he was very unhappy with the direction his career was taking at Ferrari and Mr. Almondo's promotion above him. But he did not pass any technical information about Ferrari to me until mid-March 2007."

According to Coughlan, Stepney’s leaks began with revelations of supposedly illegal devices used by the Scuderia.

"He wished to communicate concerns that certain features of Ferrari's car did not comply with the technical regulations," Coughlan said of the March exchanges, which appear to have triggered the silver team’s protest against Ferrari’s “movable floors” after the Australian GP.

"Details of the floor device were sent to me by email to my McLaren work email address. I showed the email fleetingly to [McLaren CEO] Martin Whitmarsh, who asked me to take up the issue with Paddy Lowe, McLaren's engineering director. I produced a schematic drawing for Lowe, which I understand he forwarded to the FIA. The FIA subsequently declared the floor device as falling outside the regulations.”

Coughlan also alleges that the heavily-publicized Barcelona lunch he had with Stepney back in April had precisely the purpose of asking Stepney to stop communicating with him – a version that would contradict the statement from Honda boss Nick Fry, who says the pair approached him regarding job opportunities shortly after.

"After having lunch with Stepney I asked him not to send to me anything further,” Coughlan continued. "I then asked Stepney to drive me to the airport. When I got into his car, he passed me a bundle of documents which he asked me to look at. My engineering curiosity got the better of me and I foolishly took the documents from him. I casually flicked through them over the course of 25 minutes or so the journey took for Stepney to drive me to the airport. I kept hold of the documents and took them home with me. I did not look further at the documents that weekend."

Coughlan also claims the meeting with Fry was the last time he saw Stepney: "The meeting had been arranged by Stepney to discuss a possible career opportunity for him at Honda. I attended out of curiosity to hear what Fry had to say in relation to possible opportunities for myself at a later date. No Ferrari information was passed to Fry in the course of that meeting or by me at any other time."

Coughlan’s version for the now-famous copy-store incident – the whole scandal apparently was triggered by the copy-store clerk, who contacted Ferrari upon receiving the order to copy 780 pages of confidential Scuderia information – is similarly candid.

"I cannot recall the exact date, but in early June 2007 I asked my wife to arrange for the documents to be scanned onto compact discs. I had decided to destroy all of the documents but I wanted to retain a copy in a more compact form that I could return to Stepney in the event that he requested their return.

"I gave the documents to my wife and asked her to get them scanned onto disk. Around the same time I ordered a document shredder, which I intended to use to shred the documents at my house once they had been copied. In or around June 8 2007 I traveled to the United States for the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis. While I was in the United States, my wife took the documents to a shop and these were copied onto two compact discs. Following my return from the United States, I asked my wife to set up the new shredder and shred the documents and then burn them. She did this on June 20 2007."

Now virtually banned from the pinnacle of motorsport’s inner circle, the Briton admits to regret his decisions. "I sincerely regret my actions in accepting the information from Stepney and the fact that I did not take more steps to stop him providing this information to me. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see how I should have handled matters very differently, but at the time, having found myself in an uncomfortable and difficult position, my indecision as to how best to deal with this led me to fail to take proper action at all.

"I wish to apologize to Ferrari. My passion and enthusiasm for race-car engineering design has caused me to exercise poor judgment in my dealings with Mr. Stepney. I enormously regret the unfair embarrassment I have caused to McLaren and to my wife. I can honestly say that McLaren received no benefit whatsoever in relation to their car or any aspect of its performance and that no use of any of the material has been made in relation to the car."

The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team has lost its points in the Constructors' World Championship for 2007 and will not be allowed to score in the final four races - and has been fined $100m, although this will be reduced because the team will be credited the money that it would have won this year.

The points in the Drivers' World Championship will remain as they are.

The punishment has now been officially confirmed by the FIA but the stories in Paris come from reliable sources. The team is expected to appeal.

The initial impact of such a collosal fine is going to make front page headlines around the world tomorrow and that will be a punishment in itself as the team will suffer from that bad publicity. Any reduction of that fine under appeal will not be widely reported.

The decision came after a day of high drama in Paris with a string of witnesses including Lewis Hamilton, Ross Brawn and Ron Dennis appearing before the World Council.

The key point is that the team was not excluded from the Constructors' title, a subtle but important difference as this may avoid the team automatically losing sponsor contracts. It will however make life difficult for the team because sponsors are not going to be happy. It remaisn to be seen whether McLaren decides to take any civil action as a result of the damage done but this must remain a possibility.

The FIA has yet to explain how the teams can be punished without hurting the drivers - leaving open the possibility of claims that the Drivers' championship is not fair. The FIA says that it will issue a full decision tomorrow and that as soon as it possibly can it will put out full transcripts of the hearing today and the hearing in July, to show that the team has been treated in a proper fashion. This is aimed at reducing the suggestion that this is part of a vendetta against the team. Whether this is successful is another matter.

There has been no reaction from McLaren as yet but there is no doubt that the team will be upset by the decision. Ferrari has reacted saying it is satisfied "that the truth has now emerged".

Whether it is the whole truth about all the teams remains to be seen.

If Ferrari is really satisfied to win what is without doubt a tainted Constructors' Championship observers will be forgiven for suggesting that the team's attitude is that victory is the only important factor, not how it was achieved. BMW boss Mario Theissen said at Monza that he would not be happy to finish second in the Constructors' Championship if McLaren was thrown out - which seems a more sporting reaction.

The questions raised and implications of the decisions will be debated all weekend at Spa but the question that needs to be answered above all else is whether the punishment really fits the crime. That is not something to be decided without a great deal of thought - and a lot more evidence.

Fernando Alonso is implicated in the FIA's findings behind their punishment of McLaren.

Reigning World Champion Fernando Alonso has been fully implicated in the FIA's findings behind their strict sanctions of McLaren in the spy scandal.

McLaren were stripped of all their Constructors' points for this season on Thursday and handed a record fine of 100million US dollars (£49.2million) as punishment.

In their 15-page judgment released on Friday, the FIA have published details of emails exchanged between Alonso and test driver Pedro de la Rosa proving they were in unauthorised possession of highly confidential technical information belonging to Ferrari.

One section of the report reads: "The emails show unequivocally that both Mr Alonso and Mr de la Rosa received confidential Ferrari information via (Mike) Coughlan.

"Both drivers knew that this information was confidential Ferrari information and that both knew that the information was being received by Coughlan from (Nigel) Stepney."

Mike Coughlan was suspended from his position as McLaren chief designer on July 3, the same day Ferrari sacked Stepney as their head of performance development.

It is understood Stepney forwarded a 780-page technical dossier to Coughlan, an accusation the former continues to deny.

But one email exchange between Coughlan and de la Rosa and then de la Rosa and Alonso is particularly damning.

It initially relates to the weight distribution of Ferrari's cars as set up for the Australian Grand Prix on March 18.

According to the FIA release, de la Rosa emailed Coughlan on 21 March requesting specific details of Ferrari's car.

"Hi Mike, do you know the Red Car's Weight Distribution? It would be important for us to know so that we could try it in the simulator. Thanks in advance, Pedro.

"p.s. I will be in the simulator tomorrow."

In his evidence given to the WMSC, de la Rosa confirmed that Coughlan replied by text message with precise details of Ferrari's weight distribution.

The Spaniard then passed that information on to Alonso on March 25, 2007.

De la Rosa then pertinently concludes: "All the information from Ferrari is very reliable.

"It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic - I don't know what post he holds now.

"He's the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi (Raikkonen) was stopping on lap 18.

"He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our chief designer, and he told him that."

In his email exchange with Alonso, de la Rosa also refers to tests being carried out on a flexible wing in which he says is "a copy of the system we think Ferrari uses".

An April email exchange between de la Rosa and Coughlan referring to Ferrari's braking system results in the latter stating: "We are looking at something similar."

The FIA conclude: "This latter statement strongly suggests the McLaren system was being worked on from a position of knowledge of the details of the Ferrari system, which, even if the Ferrari system not being directly copied, must be more advantageous to McLaren than designing a system without such knowledge."

The FIA also highlight evidence from Ferrari, originating from the Italian Police, and is the result of an official analysis of telephone, texts and email contacts between Coughlan and Stepney.

Between the period March 21 to July 3, Coughlan received 23 calls from Stepney's mobile, with four made, while Coughlan received 124 texts from Stepney, and sent 66.

The FIA note that contact increased during a test carried out by Ferrari in Malaysia at the end of March, and in the run-up to and during the Australian, Malaysian, Bahrain and Spanish Grands Prix.

The FIA state: "The new evidence regarding the number and timing of the contacts makes it far more likely that there was a systematic flow of Ferrari confidential information to Coughlan leading to the conclusion that the illicit communication of information was very likely not limited to the transmission of the Ferrari dossier discovered at Coughlan's home on 3 July 2007."

McLaren argued that any information received was not used and did not enhance their car, but the FIA countered they were "entitled to treat possession of another team's information as an offence meriting a penalty on its own if it so chooses".

They also state that "Coughlan's actions were intended by him to give McLaren a sporting advantage".

In conclusion, the FIA report states: "The WMSC finds that a number of McLaren employees or agents were in unauthorised possession of, or knew, or should have known, that other McLaren employees or agents were in unauthorised possession of highly confidential Ferrari technical information.

"In addition, the WMSC finds that there was an intention on the part of a number of McLaren personnel to use some of the Ferrari confidential information in its own testing.

"The evidence leads the WMSC to conclude that some degree of sporting advantage was obtained, though it may forever be impossible to quantify that advantage in concrete terms."

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso would have been thrown out of the drivers’ world championship if Max Mosley’s view had prevailed in the ‘spygate’ ruling, the FIA president revealed on Sunday.

The governing body’s World Council instead contented itself with disqualifying McLaren from the constructors’ title race and levying the largest fine in sporting history.

Mosley says he advocated extending the punishment to the drivers, but was in a minority on the WMSC panel.

“I would have taken all the points away from Hamilton and Alonso on the grounds that there is a suspicion they had an advantage that they should not have had,” Mosley explained.

“There was a big debate in the World Council about whether all the points should go – teams and drivers.

“A majority thought they should keep their points, [but] about five – mostly lawyers – thought all the points should go.

“They argued, how can you give the world champion’s cup to someone who may have had an unfair advantage over other drivers?

“They have effectively cheated.

“But the other side of it was, here is this brilliant world championship between Hamilton and Alonso.

“The sporting people were saying, ‘If you interfere with that, you are spoiling a very good championship. It wasn’t the drivers’ fault.’

“But there again, it never is.

“Very often, for example, a car will be disqualified because it is a kilo underweight, which will probably make no difference at all.

“But you have to have this principle.

“It’s the same as anywhere else: If you’re outside of the rules, you are not in the game.”

Mosley added that, should Hamilton or Alonso win the title, a question mark would forever hang over their achievement.

Asked whether he was disappointed by the verdict, he said: “Slightly. I feel that when people look back in 10 to 15 years’ time and when all of the emotions have gone, they will say, ‘Hang on a minute, we just don’t know what would have happened. Would Raikkonen or Massa have won it had it not been for this information?’

“So there will always be a question mark over it – there has to be, because nobody knows how big an advantage they had from that.

“But that they had an advantage is almost beyond dispute.”

The FIA president ventured that Hamilton, who has a real chance of clinching the title in his rookie season, would “probably feel more comfortable if he wins a subsequent championship, which I am sure he will, without any of these question marks”.

Hamilton took umbrage at the suggestion that a title victory by one of the McLaren drivers would be tainted, insisting he would be a worthy winner.

“I don’t have anything to say to or about Max Mosley,” he said.

“We’ve all worked hard this year and the way I feel is that the team has done absolutely nothing wrong and neither have I.

“I don’t see why people should say that if I win, it’s a tainted championship.”

Negotiations behind the scenes are keeping the phone lines buzzing at the moment as McLaren, the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone, Ferrari and perhaps other teams try to find what Ron Dennis refers to as "closure" in the Stepneygate business.

The fact that McLaren has now withdrawn its Hungary appeal seems to suggest that things are moving in the right direction to make sure that F1 is able to settle all the outstanding issues relating to this case - and perhap even to the question of who drives where in 2008 - without any more scandals spilling out into the media.

The full transcripts of the FIA World Council meetings have now been published and these reveal some interesting things, not least the state of the relationship between McLaren boss Ron Dennis and the team's number one driver Fernando Alonso.

"The relationship between Fernando and myself is extremely cold," Dennis said. "That is an understatement. In Fernando’s mind, there is the firm belief that our policy, whereby each driver receives equal treatment, does not properly reflect his status as World Champion. He bases this assertion on the fact that his experience and knowledge and what came to him from his former team is such that he should receive an advantage."

Referring to a conversation on the Sunday morning at the Hungarian GP, Dennis said that Alonso was "extremely upset with what had taken place the previous day, but nowhere nearly as upset as I was. He said things that he subsequently and fully retracted. Within the passage of material, he made a specific reference to e-mails from a McLaren engineer. When he made this statement, I said, “Stop”. I went out, brought Mr Whitmarsh him in, and Fernando said everything again, in front of his manager. When he had finished, I turned to Martin Whitmarsh, asking what we should do with this particular part of the conversation. Martin said we should find Max. After Martin and Fernando left, that is exactly what he did. I recounted the entire conversation to Max. I was upset and angry, but mainly upset. Max calmed me down. He said that I should do nothing. I started to calm down. Then, prior to the race, Fernando’s manager came and said that he had lost his temper and completely retracted everything he said. When I phoned Max, Max was understanding and said things to me that are irrelevant here, though I would be more than comfortable sharing them. He was completely understanding and said that, on the basis of what I told him, if he felt there was any real validity in what Fernando had said, he would contact me prior to taking any action."

Dennis went on to say that after the race Alonso "apologised for the outburst and I put it down to the heat of the moment, in which he was angry. That is how I took it. Other than following up with Martin, the matter ended there, until 26 days later, when the drivers received a letter. What took place between those times, I do not know. I do not know what circumstances brought that into the public domain."

He added that "we are not on speaking terms".

Dennis said that calling Mosley "clearly indicates that there was absolutely no effort on my part to hide what had happened. There was no such effort at all. It was subsequently retracted and put down to one of our engineers. I had absolute confidence that the information passed to our engineers had not been involved in it. That gave me the confidence that he was not telling the truth. And he retracted it."

When asked by the court why Alonso had not appeared at the World Council, Dennis said:

"Mr Alonso is not here because he does not want to be here. He does not speak to anyone much. He is a remarkable recluse for a driver. He is not here by choice. Moreover, he said he had other things to do by previous arrangement. I cannot force him to come. We asked him to come."

In recent days we have received (unsolicited) communication from Nigel Stepney which raises a number of questions which have not been touched on in the scandal to date. Stepney says that he believes Ferrari have been let off surprisingly lightly by the FIA. He says that there is a point that everyone is missing because they are assuming that the flow of information to Mike Coughlan was a one-way flow and that Ferrari did not gain anything. There is no evidence at all that Stepney was being paid to pass on information and he says that it was rather more simple than that.

"I got information about when they [McLaren] were stopping," Stepney says. "I got weight distribution, I got other aspects of various parts of their car from him [Coughlan]. Ferrari got off very lightly. I was their employee at the time. I was aware of certain stuff they were doing at tests, fuel levels, for example. I knew what fuel level they were running. I think they should have been docked points personally. The question is: Did I use the information, did I talk about it?' That's the big question. I spoke to some people about it. I can't prove it, there are no e-mails or anything. Points about the fuel and the differences [between Ferrari and McLaren] were discussed inside. As well as McLaren having an advantage, did Ferrari have an advantage? I think so."

So is Stepney surprised that Ferrari got off entirely without penalty?

"Very surprised," he says. "It looks like information flowing only one way. No one has been balancing the argument. No one has asked the question. They were thinking Mike was asking the questions and I was answering them."

Stepney, one can argue, is a source that is seen to be somewhat tainted given all the allegations that have been made in Italy. But they are only allegations at the moment. Nothing has been proved in a proper court of law and until it is he has as much right to make his feelings known as Montezemolo.

Nigel Stepney says that his plans to publish the full story of his adventures at Ferrari, in a book called Red Mist have had to be cancelled because the publishing company was "put under pressure" - but he does not know who was responsible for that because the publisher is unwilling to tell him what is happening. Stepney says that he will go ahead with another publisher because he believes that his story should be told and that he has not been given a fair chance to defend himself. He says that the Stepneygate scandal means that he has nothing to lose in the motor racing world.

"I'm not sure I want to work in Formula 1 again, to tell you the truth," he says. "I'm not angry with it. I think the FIA needs to change a bit. It's a business and it should be managed by people with more professionalism. I was told I mustn't go against Max Mosley (President of the FIA) or I'd lose everything. I said: 'Too late, I've already lost everything'. But that is not the point, that doesn't bother me, I can start again. We've got the best championship in years and why? Go back to the beginning. If I'd have accepted what Ferrari said to me about the car and just played the game. Ferrari won the first race by miles. Should I have just played the game?"

What is clear is that Stepney's intervention did result in Ferrari being forced to change its car after the Australian GP when McLaren went to the FIA. There was also a letter, written in August in which Stepney gave details of his attempts to tip off the FIA about the Ferrari, before he went to McLaren. This was mentioned in the recent World Council transcript in which Max Mosley said that there was nothing in these contacts with Peter Wright, Charlie Whiting and Jo Bauer to suggest that this was whistle-blowing. Unfortunately, the FIA says that it will not publish these e-mails and clear the air. This is not really in keeping with the federation's oft-stated desire for "total transparency" and will create perceptions which the FIA would probably be wise to avoid.

Very few people would argue that Stepney is blameless but that does not mean that everything he says is rubbish and must be ignored. Stepney's credibility continues to be undermined with Jean Todt telling The Times that "he lost his head, that's all. Unfortunately, sometimes you have people who lose the sense of things and it's a shame because we all have some personal responsibilities. You should have some limits, some discipline, and he did not know how to place limits on himself and the problem is that there is a high price to pay."

Todt went on to say that Ferrari has no reason to fear Stepney's accusations.

But obviously someone does because otherwise Stepney would not be having problems with his book.

In the interest of total transparency, here is Stepney's letter to Mosley on August 30, explaining his part in the scandal.

"Dear President,

You and I have known each other for many years and you like I have always had Formula 1 at the centre of our heart. The issues that have arisen have indeed been very distressing, especially when the media have been leaked information from sources that are not fully aware of the truth. These accusations have tarnished Formula 1. This has therefore pushed me to write this letter to you to explain the circumstances of events. I’d like to break the circumstances of events into 3 separate issues which I hope will help clarify the situation for you.

1) My initial doubts

In January of 2007 during the assembly of the new car I first bought up the subject about the reservations I had on the concept and legality of the front floor system with the Chief Designer Aldo Costa and another 2 senior design personnel at Ferrari. I pointed out to them the various points that concerned me and what other teams also might eventually pick-upon. The Chief designer said he would look into it. Later on in the month of February a couple of items had been better disguised before the Australian GP, but these were only cosmetic changes. I asked at the time, if we had asked the FIA for any clarification on the system which we could do, as defined under Article 2.4 in the Technical Regulations. The response was NO we will go with the system as it is and take any advantage up to the time any team makes noises to the FIA, at the minimum we will have at least 1 race under our belts before any action can be taken. Up to mid February I was the person responsible for the legality aspects of the car and each previous year I had always spoken to the Technical Director about any reservations I had on the legality of the cars, he would then go away to discuss the details and then come back later with the answers and explain to me where we stood. So this was a normal situation during the course of my duties. I decided in mid February to step down from my role as Technical Manager for various reasons one of which was this new way of approaching the regulations, I also declined to accept the responsibility in my new role of Team Performance Manager, of being responsible for the legality of the car, and made it clear to various other top team representatives that for me the car was illegal in a couple of areas. Nobody took any notice which was very frustrating.

Later on in February I was still not comfortable with this philosophy and contacted Peter Wright to ask him for his technical advice on the subject of the legality of the front floor system. He said he could give his own advice on the subject but I could only get an official clarification from Charlie Whiting, I said for now his own comments would be sufficient. Later on I sent Peter an e-mail on the details of the system and laid out my concerns on the Ferrari's front floor system. I described that for me it did not conform to Article 3.15 in the Technical Regulations and it could also possibly be conceived as being at the beginning of a crude lever type mass damper.

Peter came back to me a few days later saying it looked very suspicious and asked me how I wanted to handle the situation, I said he could inform Charlie Whiting but please don’t mention where this information came from. Peter also asked me what I wanted and what was I trying to achieve from doing this and I replied I’m not looking for anything except a clean and fair championship.

Peter informed me about 10 days before the start of the Championship that he had discussed this system with Charlie Whiting, he had asked him where he had found the source of information but Peter would not tell him, Charlie Whiting said he was aware of some system but not to this extent and would look further into the subject at the Australian GP. Personally I would have thought that because of the seriousness of the claim that it should have been looked into BEFORE the event!

2) Technical reasons for raising the issues

I will try to answer the points in Article 2.4 in the Technical Regulations relating to this system so it can be more clearly seen why Ferrari were not prepared to ask for clarification at the beginning –

a) The front floor is attached to the chassis via a mechanical hinge system at its most rearward point, the most forward support is a body with 1 compression spring and 1 tension spring inside which can be adjusted according to the amount of mass that is fitted to the front floor. There is also a skirt which seals the floor to the chassis which is made out of rubber and Kevlar to help the flexibility and reduce the friction in the system.

b) This models a complex mass-spring-damper system. The system consists of a mass ,B, suspended on a lever arm, a compression coil spring ,C, and a tension coil spring ,T. This tension coil spring can be pre-loaded to compensate for the varying amounts of mass, therefore allowing always equilibrium within the system. A force, F, is applied to the lever arm.

c) There are no immediate implications on other parts of the car for the Ferrari but if system had been allowed it could have meant a huge cost of development for other teams in such areas as chassis and under trays etc to make way for the provision for storing the system and the variable quantity of mass.

d) The possible long term consequences of such a system would be quite substantial because the system is in a crude state of development it could mean the development to chassis the improvement of the hinge system to the main under tray the necessity to increase the quantity of mass in this area which would depend on how much ballast was available therefore by reducing the weight of other components on the car and the weight distribution requirements.

e) The precise way in which the car system would enhance the performance of the car is in my view the following salient points –

i. It allows the car to ride over the kerbs of chicanes harder because of the 14-15mm deflection at the leading edge of the floor and disturbing the car less.

ii. The system would allow for a straighter line through chicanes.

iii. Also a ride and aerodynamic advantage could be obtained because of the spring and mass layout on the front floor with the mass damper coming into effect.

iv. The front plank wear is reduced therefore allowing the car to run lower at the front which allows a gain and aerodynamic advantage in efficiency.

v. The car from around 160-180 kms is about 7-8mm lower at the leading edge of the front floor which multiplies nearly up to 19-20mm lower front wing height at the leading edge. The benefits in terms of ground effects and efficiency would be gained all around the components like turning vanes and front wing at the reduced height relative to the ground.

The above points could give a serious advantage over the competitor’s cars.

On the Friday of the Australian GP I phoned up Mike Coughlan to ask him how things were going generally and if the FIA had taken any action on any issues, he told me no it was very quiet so far. I asked him if he had time to look at the other teams cars, he said he had a brief look and asked me why I wanted to know if the FIA had taken any actions on what issues, so I told him about the e-mail I had sent to the Peter Wright concerning the front floor system on the Ferrari, he asked me for a copy, so I said I’ll send you a copy of the e-mail I sent to Peter Wright. He asked me what I wanted and I replied nothing but a clean and fair championship. I suggested he should make his own judgement and then talk to Charlie Whiting to seek clarification. The rest of the story which unfolded during the event of which I’m sure you’re aware of.

I also sent an e-mail to Jo Bauer around the same time of the first e-mail sent to Peter Wright but on another subject. I wanted the FIA to be aware of what was going on again and treated with the same confidentiality as the other issue.

This e-mail contained points relevant to Articles 2.5 and 3.2 in the technical regulations. I pointed out that there was a possibility of the car when sitting statically on the 3 reference plane points was not sitting parallel to the FIAs flat horizontal surface. The advantage from doing this is that you can gain in height relative to the ground on all bodywork facing the ground because by offsetting the 2 front points by -1mm below the reference plane and the rear point that is +1mm above the reference plane. This in terms of height and advantages gained lowers the front wing between 2-3mm towards the ground. This may seem a very small number but any way to reduce the front wing and turning vane height to the ground is a performance advantage. This was subsequently delt with by Charlie Whiting AFTER the Australian GP, but it would have been possible to have modified the cars prior to the Australian GP.

I would like to add the following remarks –

a) I believe Charlie Whiting acted in the best interests of the sport in the way he handled these issues. I also think he never made any reference to the mass damper to reduce any possible aggravation or he believed it was never an issue. By making a general across the board decision on the changes to the regulations no single team was pointed out as having circumnavigated the regulations.

b) The only issues for me are why did he not take action earlier in the event therefore reducing the advantage any team may have had?

c) If McLaren had not asked for clarification of the legality of the Ferrari system would Charlie Whiting still have taken the same action or waited 2 to 3 races or never ?

d) Knowing this information why were the cars allowed through scrutineering when there was possibly some doubt into the eligibility of the cars presented for scrutineering?

3) Personal involvement

Now we come onto the third issue concerning the Ferrari documents.

I was contemplating my next move in my career and required a new challenge. I had been offered by the new Technical Director of Ferrari the possibility in the future to be more involved at the initial design and concept stage of the car. I thought about this and decided to gather some information together to study and try to understand if I could be of any value in this area.

At the same time I was looking for other challenges and also decided to look around in another team where I thought I could make an impact and help bring a team that was further down the grid to be more successful which is what I had helped be a part of in doing with Ferrari. I chose to approach the Honda F1 Team but also thought that to achieve my goal I would need some other people. So I thought first I needed a Chief Designer or Technical Director so I contacted Mike Coughlan.

We met in Barcelona where I was on holiday contemplating my future. I knew Mike and respected his work, the quality of the design and the attention to detail of the McLaren was next to none and mainly down to him. We talked about how we might integrate into another team and what approach we should take. I said what my options were at Ferrari and he suggested perhaps if I was thinking of going in the direction of being involved in initial design and the concept stage that going on a Catia course could be a good idea.

I told him I had prepared some draft contracts which I had in my possession and asked him what terms he would be looking for. I also had documents from Ferrari on me at the time, which I was using to try and understand if I could make the step from basically a chief mechanic into a more senior technical roll of which I had never been trained for. Having these Ferrari documents was completely legitimate because I was still with Ferrari.

Mike looked at some of the documents and was obviously interested in them, I said I didn’t think it was a good idea that he should be looking at these papers. I was obviously wrong to even have let him have access to them. But he said that I could use these in the Catia course. Eventually he took a small amount of these documents and put them in his bag, I asked what was he going to do with them and he said don’t worry nothing. We then got into the car because it was time to go to the airport, in the car he saw some other documents which he started to read, he then took them all and pushed them inside his back pack. I didn’t think it was a good idea and said you can’t do anything with them. He told me don’t worry I won’t use any of this stuff.

Mike really had no reason to use any of this information at McLaren and to the best of my knowledge he never contemplated the idea. His only intention was to help me out. McLaren is a well respected organization and quite capable of winning the championship without any outside help or information, gained by deceit.

Also you cannot take items from one concept of car design, manufacture them and expect that they are going to benefit the concept of another car design. There was never any talk or intention either of using this information in any other team.

You have to understand that my computer has been confiscated by Ferrari and therefore I cannot supply any documents to back up my statements and only an indication of the dates, but your organization will have copies of the original e-mails I sent regarding my concerns.

I would like to make the point that never at any time was there any malice in my actions towards you and FIA. Also it was never my intention to cause any damage or injury to the reputation of any of the parties involved which I hope is now evident.

In conclusion I accept that perhaps I was nieve but my intentions were to do the best for the sport that I have been involved in for the last 30 year and more importantly a fair and clean Championship.

Yours sincerely

Nigel Stepney

Copy to:

Mr Ron Dennis

Mr Jean Todt