Renault thus defends itself from accusations of espionage

Following the notification addressed to the representatives of the ING Renault F1 team, summoned by the FIA ​​in the next World Council, the team wanted to clarify its situation.

On 6 September 2007 it was brought to our attention that an engineer (Phil Mackereth), who had joined the team in September 2006, had brought with him information considered proprietary to McLaren. This information was contained on floppy disks and included copies of some McLaren engineering technical drawings and other spreadsheets.

At Phil Mackereth's request, this information was uploaded to his personal directory within the Renault F1 team's IT system. This operation was conducted without any team manager being informed. and as soon as the situation was brought to the attention of the technical managers, the following measures were taken:

a) the information was totally deleted from the team's computer system and a formal investigation was launched.

b) McLaren was promptly informed of the situation and the FIA ​​was subsequently informed.

c) since then, McLaren and the FIA ​​have been continuously informed of the progress of the internal investigation.

d) Mackereth was immediately relieved of his duties.

e) the original floppy disks were recovered and sent by our lawyers to McLaren.

The internal investigation revealed that in the first moments of taking charge of his duties at Renault, Phil Mackereth disclosed this information to some engineers by viewing small-scale drawings.

These drawings covered four key fields from McLaren: the internal profile of the petrol tank, the gearbox gears, a mass damper and another damping system at the shock absorber level. The engineers involved said they briefly looked at these drawings, and none of this information was used to guide the design of the Renault car.

In the particular case of the mass damper, already declared illegal by the FIA, the drawings in question could not represent any value. Even the damping system at the McLaren shock absorber level could also be considered not compliant with the rules, as confirmed later by a specific clarification from the FIA.

Renault cooperated fully with McLMaren and the FIA, and in this spirit invited an independent body chosen by McLaren to evaluate its IT systems, inspect its cars and underlying designs, with the aim of demonstrating that this unfortunate accident did not influence the design of the cars in any way.

The ING Renault F1 team acted with complete transparency towards McLaren and the FIA, being proactive in resolving the matter. There is therefore full confidence in the judgment of the World Council.

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