CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

Which part? The penalty, or the fact another team was caught with another teams technical data? The Toyota F1 team was caught with the same. Toyota claimed it was ex Ferrari employees that now worked for Toyota who stole the Ferrari data, but they still used it in their own design and to their best advantage. Seems like when you are the top dog, everyone wants to see and copy what you are doing.

LexFather

100 mill fine is no joke

RON430

I thought someone would catch me on this. I didn't mean to imply that the IRL - Champ Car situation evolved because of stolen team technology. What I meant to say was that because you had teams arguing with sanctioning bodies and nobody really listening to anybody, open wheel racing in the US got ripped in two and IMO, and only my opinion, it has diminished open wheel racing the US ever since.

Now in F1 if I believed that another team had stolen my technology, especially after the sanctioning body essentially said, "Yep, they did", I would head off to court. The million dollar fine and disqual are from the sanctioning body, although for some bizarre reason they let the drivers running cars with stolen technology keep their points, and I would seek compensation in the courts. Ultimately the teams could get even more crappy dealing with each other and feel that the sanctioning body is incapable of deciding anything quick enough to prevent someone from stealing a season. And I don't really think that would do F1 any good and ultimately present the possibility of F1 open wheel racing diminishing itself just like the IRL - Champ Car nonsense. I am not saying it will happen, but it could. Most everybody now protects IP, if not with patents then with trademarks, copyrights, whatever they can. And they make employees sign employment agreements where they will not disclose secrets to another organization and you have to wonder if this will be the end of it. I am not sure NASCAR gets it right but these sanctioning bodies are going to have to get very serious with the rule book. Once again, IMO only, I think some areas should be highly regulated, even to the point of having one vendor. Then other areas should be entirely unregulated to let teams be creative and try to get that advantage. NASCAR tries to regulate everything and as a result, the racing is not ending up being too interesting and the only way to distinguish models is to look at the decals. And do the teams with the most money still win in NASCAR? Pretty much. But this is getting off the point. It should be interesting to see if this is it and you can argue that in the future books, the drivers champion will be the drivers champion for the series and no one will care that they used stolen technology to do it. Then again, some people setting records are definitely tainted nowadays and I doubt people will look at their accomplishments without reminding people that it is not an apples to apples comparison with other records.

spwolf

what the hell are you talking about? Ex-Ferrari guys were found to have stolen software for F1 design. No actual technical data was used, software actually. Thats why Toyota was never accused or punished by FIA. Nor it was ever found to be used in Toyota cars.

This on the other hand is McLaren using stolen technical data on Ferrari cars and using it on their own cars.

TRDFantasy

As spywolf said, it was purely software, not technical data. And those former employees were punished in court.

The thing that most people don't understand is that there is a cross-flow of information between teams going on all the time. Kimi Raikkonen has admitted that McLaren for years used to listen in on Ferrari's scrambled radio chatter during races. Renault has admitted that for this year's R27 car they used some McLaren data/info from a former McLaren employee that moved to their team this year.

Employees are always moving around from one team or another, and the expertise or knowledge learned from one team is inevitably shared with another team. That of course is much different than stealing documents and cheating.

spwolf

to clarify with more info - basically McLaren had Ferrari insider telling them Ferrari setup for different parts of the car. What is the worst is that McLaren has activly sought to find out how ferrari's setup work, so for instance drivers asked to tune tires and weight distribution same as in Ferrari car from technical specs they got from the insider.

this is why they got punished.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

This is what I stated above. Is this not correct? Software is data IMHO.


And both of you make a distinct difference using stolen technical data and software to your advantage? The fact that Toyota refused to return the Ferrari software because they admitted it already incorporated Toyota software mixed in is proof enough that 1) Toyota knew is was Ferrari software, and 2) Used it somehow. Why the heck would you combine your software within it if you didn't study it, and/or use it to your advantage somehow? Just because the FIA didn't have enough proof to fine or condemn the team doesn't make it any more right than what was done here at McLaren. You can argue Toyota just got away with it.

The fact as you stated is those ex Ferrari employees did have to face their day in court because of it. The fact also is Ferrari software was found incorporated together with Toyota software. The fact also is Toyota refused to return the admitted Ferrari data because they didn't want their portion of the software to be disclosed to Ferrari. If Toyota had no intention of gaining and sort of advantage from this stolen software that those two ex Ferrari employees just so graciously happened to offer, they should have refused to accept it, fire the two employees and report them to the FIA.



There are two ways to look at it. 1) Lack of proof so Toyota is 100% innocent. or 2) Read between the lines and connect the dots. Toyota is not that stupid to not no where mysterious outside software that suddenly shows up in their garage came from. Just because they didn't use it on their car that year doesn't mean they didn't gain an advantage and/or knowledge of another team based on illegal activity even if it was by two ex Ferrari employees that now work for them.

If you insist that Toyota was/is still 100% innocent of those allegations at that time than that your your right. I'm definitely NOT alone in my position that they just got away with one at that time. I'm only been following F1 since 1994, so I'm not caught up fully with every incident in F1 history, but I do keep up somewhat since I love the sport.


The Ferrari software was stolen. It wasn't the two employees recalling by memory what it was and chatting in the garage. They took the software illegally when they left Ferrari and offered it to their new employer. The new employer took it, used it, reworked their own software in it, learned from it and I can't see how that is so different in the McLaren case. It is just a different set of circumstances.

spwolf

I dont know what you are arguing about - Toyota was never investigated by FIA nor did they ever think that Toyota did anything wrong.

On the other hand, McLaren drivers specifically used stolen data from ferrari, to the point of asking specific questions about Ferrari setup so they can copy it.

"Lack of proof that Toyota is 100% innocent" - wtf does that mean? Toyota was not even investigated since nobody thought they did anything wrong. Police investiagted the theft and decided that nobody else at Toyota was at fault.

It might suck that your team is cheating but oh well, you will get over it.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

The key word here is "Stolen" Doesn't matter if it was just two ex Ferrari employees that now worked for Toyota, or the President and CEO of Toyota himself. It was still stolen property.

It was never found to be used in the cars, but it still was found to be manipulated by Toyota. Toyota still gained something from this stolen software. They incorporated their own software within it. Obviously it wasn't just a couple of CDs laying around the garage that nobdy knew about. There are many ways to cheat from what you learn from stolen information. 1) You can be like McLaren and incorporate what you learn in your own design, or perhaps 2) You learn which direction not to go. Either way it is a form of cheating. Just because they didn't get punished by the FIA doesn't mean it was right.

spwolf

of course it matters... at one point you have parts of software, for instance like Adobe Photoshop. Imagine stealing parts of Adobe so you can design something.

On the other point, you have Alonso asking about how is weight distribution on Ferrari car and recorded on tape that he wants it exactly as in Ferrari.

If you dont see the difference, you are very biased and you simply dont want to.

and P.S. Toyota never knew that engineers brought software they developed at Ferrari. German police did investigate that.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

So who rewrote the Toyota software into the Ferrari software? Must have been a Toyota F1 employee right? So at the very least two F1 Toyota employees were cheating. Does it really matter if Toyota Corporate knew this or not? It is still an attempt to cheap on behalf if their employer.

What you just described above are two forms of wrong doing. What is the difference? If it is wrong it is wrong.

spwolf

obviously difference is big enough for one company to get $100 million fine, and another one to never ever be under review by FIA.

RON430

Without trying to take one side or another and particularly because I am just not interested enough in F1 to be very knowledgeable about this, there has to be some difference in what they caught McLaren doing relative to any spying, thieving, disinformation, eavesdropping, or employee poaching that has taken place in the past. The size of the fine is staggering and doesn't come close to anything handed out by any sanctioning body in the past in my recollections.

Now, whether McLaren ever pays a dime of that money is an interesting question. My guess is that whatever funds change hands it won't come close to that amount, at least not without a bunch of court wrangling. I am still not very comfortable with them leaving the drivers alone but I would quickly let McLaren know that if they don't pay the fine before the next race, their drivers can't score points. May not make any difference on the outcome of the year or it might, but if they want to get the money, they better think about forcing the issue.

TRDFantasy

Even *if* Toyota knowingly used stolen Ferrari software (which was never proven by the way), how much could they have done with it? Hypothetically speaking, the software allows you to do to designs, research concepts, etc. but you still ultimately have to come up with the ideas. In other words, with the Toyota case there was NO specific material involved like weight distribution, tire pressure, or floor designs. With the McLaren case, there was SPECIFIC information involved regarding Ferrari's car (over 700 pages of info to be exact) that McLaren could have, and likely did easily use on their car. The Toyota case was about a general thing which is software, but the McLaren case is different because it deals with exact specs and specifics of the Ferrari machine.

And let me restate that those former Ferrari employees did not stay long at Toyota; they were let go from the team and ultimately were punished in court. The story is that these two former Ferrari employees combined the software with Toyota's software without the knowledge of the Toyota team. When the team found out, it was too late. This story was never countered or proved otherwise.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

The big difference here IMHO is you have members of the McLaren team themselves threatening to turn in, or in fact turning in themselves. It has been said that Alonso threaten Ron Dennis to make him the number one driver or he would go to the FIA and turn over whatever evidence he had, Ron Dennis then went straight to the FIA and beat him to the punch. If Ron Dennis didn't self report and Alonso didn't play hardball, none of this might have come to light in the first place. Even if Ron Dennis didn't self report, and Alonso did go to the FIA, he already tipped off Ron Dennis of his intentions, so there would have been time to deny and perhaps get rid of some evidence. Now back to Toyota. Obviously nothing was outright proven, but there were so many allegations including Toyota shredding documents and evidence. One can say it was never proven so it never happened, and the entire 2003 episode was just all mere coincidence, or one can read between the lines and come to the conclusion that although Toyota was never sanctioned by the FIA or a real legal court, something fishy was going on.

To put it in perspective. The 2003 Toyota car came into question in people's mind because it looks too similar to the Ferrari design. It could have been just a coincidence. Two ex Ferrari employees are found to have stolen Ferrari material and now work for Toyota. Could just be an isolated case. The same Ferrari material is found to now have Toyota material mixed within it. Ferrari sues to get such material back. Toyota in court claims they can't/wont give it back because it already included Toyota software mixed within it and doesn't want Ferrari to see it. Still, all of this could have just been a coincidence perhaps those two engineers were working alone without anyones knowledge.