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F1: McLaren Penalty was Too Soft, Says Todt
Written by:
Adam Cooper
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
09/15/2007 - 07:00 PM
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
Big penalty it might have been, but Todt remains unmollified. (LAT photo) » More Photos
Ferrari boss Jean Todt says that McLaren's penalty of $100m and exclusion from the 2007 constructors' championship was too lenient. However, he accepts it and says that Ferrari is not going to pursue the matter any further via FIA channels.
"We don't like, but we respect [the penalty," he said after the Belgian GP. "We feel that it's a soft penalty considering all the story. But we as Ferrari… what was very important for us, as I've mentioned before, if you are guilty, you must have a penalization. They were guilty, and they had a penalization.
"You can always decide it's enough, not enough. We feel it's soft. Yesterday, the president (Max Mosley) confirmed that it was soft. But we know that in this business we have a lot of things getting into consideration, and I can understand. It's much better to have the four races, including this one, with all the drivers and all that.
"I'm not arguing about that. But definitely lots of things were taken into consideration in order to polarize more the championship rather than this single bad case."
Todt said that the end of the FIA's interest in the action does not affect other ongoing actions.
"For me what does matter is the interests of the team. Considering the civil case in England, the penal case in Italy, this has nothing to do with the FIA. And it's not our responsibility in Italy, it's up to the judges who have the matter to cover.
"In England, I know that our president dedicated this success to a supporter [the copy shop employee] who had the idea of informing us about those stolen documents. But fortunately we had somebody loyal and fair, who helped us in that, and we don't have any reason to stop any legal action."
Get the inside story of the people, science and history of Formula 1 each month in RACER. Tony Dodgins looks into the complex issues behind the McLaren/Ferrari spy scandal in our October
Todt also poured scorn on McLaren's suggestion that it would not appeal the decision in the interests of the sport.
"This year I will divide into two pieces," he said. "One was what was found in those 780 pages, which were found in July. And I mean, our major competitor never used it, it was a 'rogue employee' to repeat the word they are using, it was information that never went into their company.
"But I would remind you that the beginning of all of that… On 26 July the explanation about a whistleblower was pure invention. From the beginning of the season they had access to a lot of information which was not included in those 780 pages. Normally a whistle blower is somebody who is giving information to the sporting authority, but not to the major competitor.
"And when I read that in the interest of the sport our major competitor may not make the appeal, I think in the interests of the sport, while were talking about the conduct of agreement between those teams, everything would have been stopped if from the beginning the FIA and Ferrari would have been informed about those exchanges of information which were accepted by the top people of or major competitor.
Todt also revealed that Ross Brawn's main role at the hearing last week was to field questions from McLaren about Ferrari spying on the British team's radio transmissions. The matter fizzled out after a statement from Kimi Raikkonen indicated that McLaren had done the same, as SPEEDtv.com revealed on Friday.
He confirmed that the team is still talking to Brawn about a possible future role: "As I mentioned already we always said we would speak with Ross, and we are speaking with him. We had already a few discussions, and at the moment no decision has been yet taken by either side."
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