Thetownend.com

Raikkonen sets early pace at Spa  
 
Raikkonen is 18 points behind championship leader Hamilton
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was fastest in the first free practice session ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, free to race after avoiding punishment by the FIA in the 'spygate' case, were second and third fastest.

Raikkonen's team-mate Felipe Massa had an early set back when he went off on his first warm-up lap at Spa.

The Brazilian approached the Rivage hairpin too fast and slid off, through the gravel trap and into the barrier.

It means Massa will be behind his rivals in terms of the time he has preparing his car, which could harm his chances of setting it up to behave to his liking.



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"All the information from Ferrari is very reliable," De la Rosa wrote to Alonso on 25 March in an exchange about the Ferrari's weight distribution.

"It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic - I don't know what post he holds now.

"He's the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi (Raikkonen) was stopping in lap 18. He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our chief designer and he told him that."

This overshadows this weekend a bit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/6995240.stm

McLaren exposed by spy evidence  
 
Alonso (left) and Pedro de la Rosa are implicated in the FIA report
McLaren received a systematic flow of information from a spy within rivals Ferrari for nearly three months this year, the FIA has revealed.
Drivers Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa were aware of the information.

It was the possession of this "highly sensitive" data that led the FIA to fine McLaren £49.2m and deduct their constructors' championship points.

The information came to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan from Ferrari chief mechanic Nigel Stepney.

The data McLaren received over the three-month period concerned the Ferrari car's brakes, weight distribution and aerodynamic balance tyre inflation.

In a 16-page document, the FIA said emails showed that test driver De la Rosa and reigning world champion Alonso had been aware of the Ferrari data.

 All the information from Ferrari is very reliable

Pedro de la Rosa in an email to Fernando Alonso on 25 March

"The emails show unequivocally that both Mr Alonso and Mr de la Rosa received confidential Ferrari information via Mike Coughlan.

"Both drivers knew that this information was confidential Ferrari information and that both knew that the information was being received by Coughlan from Nigel Stepney," the report states.

In what is being viewed as the most damning section of the report, the FIA has published an email exchange between De la Rosa and Alonso.

"All the information from Ferrari is very reliable," De la Rosa wrote to Alonso on 25 March in an exchange about the Ferrari's weight distribution.

"It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic - I don't know what post he holds now.

"He's the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi (Raikkonen) was stopping in lap 18. He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our chief designer and he told him that."

McLaren has refused to comment on the FIA's revelations, published on the eve of the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa.

The extent of the information Coughlan received about the Ferrari goes far beyond what was revealed at a first meeting of the FIA's world motorsport council in July.

At that time, the FIA decided not to punish McLaren because there was no proof the information had been used "in such a way as to interfere with the running of the FIA F1 world championship".

But the new evidence persuaded the world council to change its verdict at Thursday's meeting.

De la Rosa revealed plans to test Ferrari's weight distribution in McLaren's simulator, plans that were later abandoned.

It was revealed that Alonso agreed it was "very important" that McLaren tried out the gas Ferrari were using to inflate their car's tyres.

It also emerged that De la Rosa had asked Coughlan for specific details of Ferrari's braking system, and that the designer revealed to the test driver "we are looking at something similar".

The document appears to explode the view that this was only a case of two rogue employees using the information to find better jobs at other teams, and that the confidential information had not been circulated within McLaren, as the team contended at the first world council meeting.

The world council said it had decided to inflict such a heavy punishment on McLaren because "there was an intention on the part of a number of McLaren personnel to use some of the Ferrari confidential information in its own testing".

It added: "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."

Alonso and team-mate Lewis Hamilton were not punished in the drivers' championship because "primary responsibility lies with McLaren, and also because McLaren's drivers were offered individual sanction".



 

Our spies in the FIA World Council meeting have revealed that there are going to be some surprises when the details come to light next week. We understand that the most extraordinary revelation will be in relation to the identity of the man who tipped off the FIA that there was additional evidence against McLaren: it was none other than Ron Dennis.

It appears that this strange turn of affairs came about because Dennis and Fernando Alonso argued about the details of the Spaniard's contract. Alonso seems to have mentioned that he was in possession of information that might be of interest to the FIA. In order to deprive Alonso of this rather unsavoury negotiating tool and negate the possibility of anyone else using it against McLaren and because it was the right thing to do Dennis reported the information to the FIA in the hope that his display of good faith would underline the fact that the team has been honest throughout the investigation.

It is anticipated that this will be confirmed when the transcripts of the case come to light next week.

If this is indeed the case, Fernando Alonso's image as a simple, nice fellow is going to take quite a hit.

One of the key submissions to the World Motor Sport Council on Thursday came from Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen, we can reveal.

The Ferrari driver stated in writing that while he was at McLaren from 2002 until 2006 the team systematically listened to Ferrari’s radio transmissions, which are supposed to be scrambled.

This was put to Ron Dennis in Paris on Thursday, and reportedly a long silence followed before he came up with a reply.

Intriguingly, the Kimi evidence was not part of the report released by the FIA today, and thus has not reached the public domain until now.

Ironically in July Mika Salo revealed to a Finnish newspaper that when at Ferrari in 1999 he regularly received transcripts of Mika Hakkinen’s radio conversations.

Unfortunately for Salo he was driving a Ferrari at the Spa 24 Hours the week that story emerged. A “correction” was soon sent from Maranello explaining what the Finn had meant to say was that in those primitive days sometimes teams accidentally overheard the conversations of rivals…

Reports have suggested Alonso told Dennis he would show the e-mails to Max Mosley, president of the sport's governing body the FIA, if he did not give Alonso number one status at McLaren over Lewis Hamilton.

Dennis is said to have called his bluff, telling Alonso to go ahead. At which point, it is claimed, Dennis then phoned Mosley himself, effectively handing his team in to the FIA.

In the meantime, Alonso had decided not to go through with it. Garcia, however, denied Alonso had threatened Dennis in that way.

"It's not true, and it's not possible," he said. "The facts say it is not true because it happened in a different way."

He did not elaborate.

Best action of the day was watching Sutil's Spyker charging up to 12th at one point...
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/6999248.stm

This is getting a bit ridiculous - why can't this kind of thing be kept private, not splashed all over the media.

Thought of Heidfeld because he is german, and what with the Mercedes part ownership of MacLaren....Contracts don't mean everything, look at Button.

 Maybe they'll go for an established #1 driver (Hamilton)  and look for a #2 yes man, but it's not really how the team works.