FEBRUARY 7, 2008

Back in Modena

The Formula 1 has done its best to close the book on the 2007 espionage affair but it seems that the Italians are not going to give up that easily. There were reports yesterday in the Italian press that Modena magistrate Giuseppe Tibis has asked for a number of McLaren staff to visit him to answer questions about the espionage question, to see whether it is worth pushing ahead with the civil legal action in Italy.

The Formula 1 has done its best to close the book on the 2007 espionage affair but it seems that the Italians are not going to give up that easily. There were reports yesterday in the Italian press that Modena magistrate Giuseppe Tibis has asked for a number of McLaren staff to visit him to answer questions about the espionage question, to see whether it is worth pushing ahead with the civil legal action in Italy. McLaren has confirmed that papers have been received from Italy but is not making any comment as there has not been time to analyse what they mean.

Given that Italian journalists must have known about this on Tuesday, in order to make the deadlines for the Wednesday newspapers, one can speculate that the media could have known about this before McLaren did, which raises a number of questions about the matter.

Be that as it may, the staff in question are Ron Dennis, Martin Whitmarsh, Paddy Lowe, Jonathan Neale and Rob Taylor. The magistrate also wants to talk to Mike Coughlan and Nigel Stepney.