I said before that Ferrari wouldn’t just accept the decision of the FIA motorsport council ‘letting off’ McLaren in the spying row between the two teams. And I was right; the Italian motorsport federation wrote a letter to Max Mosley all but demanding an appeal to give Ferrari a chance to present their side of the story as they hadn’t been given a chance to do so in the original hearing, which McLaren dispute. So now McLaren have to face another hearing and are still under the threat of expulsion from the championship or being docked points already earned. McLaren have hit back at Ferrari releasing a full disclosure of what went on between Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan, including Stepney ‘whistle blowing’ on Ferrari saying that Ferrari intended to use an illegal car in the season opener in Melbourne and subsequent races. McLaren asked the FIA for clarification on the rules and Ferrari’s floor design was deemed to be illegal and had to be redesigned despite winning the Australian GP with the ‘illegal’ car design. McLaren admit to receiving that information from Nigel Stepney, but was not party to any further exchanges of information. The dossier was found in the possession of Coughlan at his home and no evidence was found at the McLaren offices. The letter to Luigi Macaluso of the Italian motorsport federation also CC’ed to Jean Todt and Max Mosley can be found here. The letter accuses Ferrari of bringing the sport into disrepute by using the press to spread false and misleading information about the McLaren teams role in this saga. I just think that the teams involved should just get on with the job in hand, fighting for the world championship, if McLaren get excluded or lose their points this season so far myself and no doubt hundreds of thousands of others will lose interest and faith in F1 and give up watching for the rest of the season as the result will be a forgone conclusion. I think this statement from Ron Denis says it all “This is a fantastic world championship and it would be a tragedy if one of the best world championships in years was derailed by the acts of one Ferrari and one McLaren employee acting for their own purposes wholly unconnected with Ferrari or McLaren.”, “The world championship should be contested on the track not in courts or in the press.” – [Read the ITV-F1 story]