Statement concerning the allegation against the ING Renault
F1 Team regarding McLaren proprietary information - 9 NOV
2007
Following the notification of the FIA for the ING Renault
F1 Team representatives to appear in front of the World Council,
the team wishes to clarify the situation.
On the 6th September 2007 it came to our attention that an
engineer (Mr Phil Mackereth) who joined the team from McLaren
in Sept 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 some technical spreadsheets.
This information was loaded at the request of Mr Mackereth
onto his personal directory on the Renault F1 Team file system.
This was done without the knowledge of anyone in authority
in the team. As soon as the situation was brought to the attention
of the team's technical management, the following actions
were taken:
• The information was completely cleansed from the
team's computer systems and a formal investigation was started.
• We promptly informed McLaren of the situation and
immediately after the FIA.
• Since then we have constantly and regularly kept McLaren
and the FIA informed on all relevant findings.
• Mr Mackereth was immediately suspended from his position.
• The original floppy discs were impounded and sent
to our solicitors for return to McLaren.
Our formal investigation showed that early in his employment
with Renault Mr Mackereth made some of our engineers aware
of parts of this information in the form of a few reduced
scale engineering drawings. These drawings covered four basic
systems as used by McLaren and were: the internal layout of
the fuel tank, the basic layout of the gear clusters, a tuned
mass damper and a suspension damper. Subsequent 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. 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. The suspension damper drawing hinted
that the McLaren design might be similarly considered illegal
and a subsequent clarification from the FIA confirmed this
based upon our crude interpretation of the concept.
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 anyway
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.
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