F1 battle rumbles on with Dennis Letter

The war of words between McLaren and Ferrari has intensified, with Ron Dennis accusing the Italian team of winning this year’s Australian Grand Prix with an illegal car.

Attempting to set the record straight, Dennis has written an open letter to FIA president Max Mosley, and Luigi Macaluso, president of the Italian Automobile Federation.

A strongly-worded letter from Macaluso to Mosley on Monday led to the latter deciding to revert the ongoing ’spy’ saga to the Court of Appeal.

At an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris last week, McLaren were found guilty of fraudulent conduct.

But due to what the WMSC described as “insufficient evidence”, it was decided no sanction would be imposed against the Woking-based marque.

That prompted fury from Ferrari, and Macaluso’s letter in which he feared the decision of the WMSC “could create a precedent which, at this level of the sport and stage of the competition, would be highly inappropriate and detrimental to the sport.”

Dennis, breaking his silence on details of the affair, wrote: “McLaren’s reputation has been unfairly sullied by incorrect press reports from Italy and grossly misleading statements from Ferrari.”

In his 3000-word letter, Dennis initially applauds Nigel Stepney – sacked by Ferrari as head of performance development on July 3 – for blowing the whistle on his team ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

Stepney contacted Mike Coughlan, currently suspended as McLaren’s chief designer, with regard to two design elements of the Ferrari car he believed to be in breach in FIA regulations.

One of which – a rear-wing separator – was deemed legal, however, the other – a ’flexi’ floor – was proven to be illegal.

Dennis believes Ferrari ran their cars with the illegal floor at Melbourne, where Kimi Raikkonen triumphed on his debut for the team.

In his letter, Dennis states: “Ferrari only withdrew the floor device after it was confirmed to be illegal by the FIA.

“Were it not for Mr Stepney drawing this illegal device to the attention of McLaren, and McLaren drawing it to the attention of the FIA, there is every reason to suppose that Ferrari would have continued to race with an illegal car.”

He adds: “It is in the interests of F1 that whistle-blowing is encouraged and not discouraged. If team members think that their identity will be revealed they will not whistle-blow.”

Dennis further clarifies the ’relationship’ that developed between Coughlan and Stepney, with the latter alleged to have provided the former with a 780-page Ferrari technical dossier.

Dennis states Coughlan was ordered to break contact with Stepney, even meeting him face to face in Barcelona, where it is claimed the documents were passed on.

Ferrari have suggested McLaren staff were aware of Coughlan’s actions, and that they made use of the documents, strenuously rejected by Dennis “as offensive and false allegations.”

In conclusion to his letter, Dennis writes: “The reason McLaren was not penalised is that the WMSC rightly concluded that it should not be blamed for Mr Coughlan’s actions.

“It based its decision on solid facts and not false innuendo.

“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.

“We believe the Ferrari press releases, the leaks to the Italian press and recent events have been damaging to Formula One as well as McLaren. The world championship should be contested on the track, not in courts or in the press.

“We will naturally present our case before the FIA Court of Appeal as we strongly believe McLaren has done nothing wrong.

“It is our belief justice will prevail and that McLaren will not be penalised.”