JANUARY 16, 2006

The Toyota charges

The Cologne public prosecution service has charged three men with being involved in using a Ferrari data analysis programme. Toyota has confirmed that the three are former team principal Ove Andersson, chief designer Gustav Brunner and the team's head of aerodynamics Rene Hilhorst. The three are accused of violating German competition law. Toyota said that the charges are not related to the team itself and does not wish to comment.

It is a shock to find Andersson's name given his long-established reputation for being honest. He is widely-trusted in a world where many others are not. There is one stain on his otherwise exemplary career and that was back in 1994 when Toyota was found to have been using illegal turbochargers in the World Rally Championship. It was later established by the FIA that the team management did not know what was happening and that the engineers involved had been acting alone.

The German prosecutors will now have to put their case before a judge who will decide it the cases go to court.