14th September 2007
Spaniard implicated through de la Rosa emails
Reigning world champion Fernando Alonso has been fully implicated in the FIA's findings behind their strict sanctions of McLaren in the spy scandal.
McLaren were stripped of all their constructors' points for this season on Thursday and handed a record fine of $100 million (£49.2million) as punishment.
In their 15-page judgment released on Friday, the FIA have published details of emails exchanged between Alonso and test driver Pedro de la Rosa, proving they were in unauthorised possession of highly confidential technical information belonging to Ferrari.
One section of the report reads: "The emails show unequivocally that both Mr Alonso and Mr de la Rosa received confidential Ferrari information via (Mike) Coughlan.
Confidential
"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."
Mike Coughlan was suspended from his position as McLaren chief designer on July 3, the same day Ferrari sacked Stepney as their head of performance development.
It is understood Stepney forwarded a 780-page technical dossier to Coughlan, an accusation the former continues to deny.
But one email exchange between de la Rosa and Alonso dated March 25, 2007, is particularly damning.
It initially relates to the weight distribution of Ferrari's cars as set up for the Australian Grand Prix on March 18.
De la Rosa then pertinently concludes: "All the information from Ferrari is very reliable.
"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 on lap 18.
"He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our chief designer, and he told him that."
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