- 14 Sep 07, 14:41#13804Ah, well, the evidence has finally started to appear.
FIA's statement says "The evidence leads the WMSC to conclude that some degree of sporting advantage was obtained, though it may forever be impossible to quantify that advantage in concrete terms,"
Basically, they did find emails from Pedro to Alonso, but only discussing that there was information and that "It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic -- I don't know what post he holds now". This was speaking about Weight Distribution information that Coughlan had provided.
The FIA found no evidence of use of this data on the cars, but summed up from the number of SMS messages between Coughlan and Stepney that something must have been used somewhere, or at the least Alonso knew more than he should about certain setups of the Ferrari car.
It was Alonso himself that provided these to the FIA as part of the hearing.
So, this is why the FIA fined McLaren: For the fact their driver, Alonso, had some data sent in an email from De La Rosa and also due to the number of SMS messages Coughlan had in his phone during one of Ferrari's busiest testing runs.
The question is: Do you think that the punishment is fair for this? I leave it up to you...
"Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so"