NOVEMBER 17, 1997

McLaren decrypted

ONE interesting piece of information which emerged from the FIA World Council meeting was that McLaren's pit-driver messages - which are encrypted to ensure that other teams do not listen in - have been decoded by rival teams.

ONE interesting piece of information which emerged from the FIA World Council meeting was that McLaren's pit-driver messages - which are encrypted to ensure that other teams do not listen in - have been decoded by rival teams. "Some of the teams have been decoding McLaren's conversations for some time," said Mosley, "unknown, I think, to McLaren."

Mosley said the McLaren tape from Jerez featured a conversation between David Coulthard and team manager DaveyÊRyan in which Ryan tried to persuade Coulthard to make way for Hakkinen. "They were having the utmost difficulty in doing so and Coulthard argued vehemently for his place."

Other sources say that in the end McLaren threatened to fire Coulthard if he did not comply with the team orders. This would help to explain why David was so obviously unhappy at the end of the race, despite saying all the right things in the post-race press conference.

The FIA President said that he saw no harm in teams listening to one another "Everybody should be able to do so in exactly the same way they can see the pit signals. I don't like the idea of secret transmissions. It would be best if they were out in the open and anyone could listen, including the journalists. I hope to secure the agreement of everyone on that principle."