Renault suspend engineer after FIA charge

RENAULT’S Formula One team have suspended one of their engineers after the FIA charged them with possessing confidential information belonging to McLaren.

On Thursday, the FIA ordered the team to appear in Monaco before the World Motor Sport Council on December 6, to answer a charge in relation to a breach of article 151c of the International Sporting Code.

Renault moved to defend themselves yesterday by revealing they suspended the individual involved, informed the FIA and McLaren, erased all records of the information and returned the original copies to their Formula One rivals and launched an investigation.

In a statement the team said: “On September 6 it came to our attention that an engineer (Phil Mackereth) who joined the team from McLaren in September 2006 had brought with him some information that was considered to be proprietary to McLaren.

“This information was contained on old-style floppy discs and included copies of some McLaren engineering drawings and technical spreadsheets.

“This information was loaded at the request of Mr Mackereth on to his personal directory on the Renault F1 Team file system. This was done without the knowledge of anyone in authority in the team.”

Renault claimed their investigation revealed Mackereth had shown some engineers a few reduced-scale engineering drawings which covered the internal layout of the fuel tank, the basic layout of the gear clusters, a tuned mass damper and a suspension damper.

However, the team denied the information had been used to gain any advantage.

“Witness statements from the engineers involved have categorically stated that having been briefly shown these drawings, none of this information was used to influence design decisions relating to the Renault car,” added the statement.

“In the particular case of the tuned mass damper, these had already been deemed illegal by the FIA and therefore the drawing was of no value.

“ING Renault F1 Team have co-operated fully with McLaren and the FIA in this matter to the extent that the team has invited McLaren’s independent experts to come and assess the team’s computer systems and inspect the cars and the design records, to demonstrate that this unfortunate incident has not in any way influenced the design of the cars.

“ING Renault F1 Team have acted with complete transparency towards McLaren and the FIA, being proactive in solving this matter, and we are fully confident in the judgment of the World Council.”

Renault’s charge is the second ‘spying’ row to hit the sport this year after McLaren were given a record £47.5milliom (67.7m) fine having been found guilty of a similar charge in September.

The team were also thrown out of the constructors’ championship after they were found to be in possession of Ferrari technical information.