McLaren's debacle;fined $ 100 million

The McLaren Formula One team escaped a disastrous end to a promising season but were however docked all of their points in the constructors' championship after a decision by the FIA.

The FIA convened a World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris to pore over allegations that McLaren, this season's pacesetters in both the drivers and constructors' competitions, benefited from a leaked 780-page dossier of secret Ferrari technical information.

As well as losing all their constructors' points, the British-owned team were fined 100 million (US) dollars.

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso have however escaped losing the points they have won. Hamilton is currently leading the drivers' championship while Alonso claimed victory at Monza last week to close the gap on his team-mate to three points.

Ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, McLaren were in the lead of the constructors' championship with 166 points, ahead of Italian rivals Ferrari (143) and BMW Sauber (86).

The 'spygate' scandal has cast a gloomy shadow over the season since early July, when it emerged that Ferrari mechanic Nigel Stepney had given confidential information to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.

In an FIA hearing at the end of that month McLaren were found guilty of unauthorised possession of Ferrari data but no penalty was issued as there was deemed to be no proof that they gained any advantage from the information.

Ferrari were outraged by that conclusion but clung to the FIA's promise that they would revisit the case if fresh evidence came to light. Ahead of last weekend's Italian Grand Prix it transpired that the FIA themselves had uncovered new evidence and Thursday's meeting, originally scheduled to be a Ferrari appeal, was switched to a full World Motor Sport Council hearing.

The new evidence is said, by the British newspaper The Times, to include details of phone and email correspondence involving, amongst others, Alonso, McLaren test driver Pedro De La Rosa, Coughlan and Stepney.

Throughout the affair McLaren have pleaded total innocence, maintaining that not a single component on their MP4-22 car owes anything to the leaked dossier.

Source: F1.com