10/09/2007
NEWS STORY
Jean Todt has said that if McLaren are exonerated from the spying scandal that dominated Formula One for the last three months, his team will move into the civil courts to pursue its claim that the English-based team benefited from sight of Ferrari documentation.
His comments came after McLaren beat Ferrari on their home ground at Monza. "For us it is something which is too important and we will move forwards in Italy," said Todt. "I'm not going to comment on what the decisions will be, I don't know what will be the decision or then what can happen once the decision will be taken, and we will move on then with a civil court in the UK as well."
Todt went on to say that he has no influence on any penalty that might be served if McLaren were to be found guilty. "It's not a menu where we get 'would you prefer number one? Number two?' We are not to chose. That's the FIA, the World Council who will have to decide with the evidence that they will have in hand and our duty is to make (available) as much evidence as possible for the World Council to understand exactly what happened.
"We did not accept it," he added, referring to the previous verdict, "because we felt that the decision was not appropriate and then if you see the wording of the decision 'in case of new evidence' things will be different. So we have new evidence. We have been able to produce new evidence."
Todt pointed out that there was no chance of an agreement between Ferrari and McLaren before Thursday's hearing. "It's nothing to do with an agreement between Ferrari and McLaren. It's a case which is going to be taken in front of the World Council. It was normally a hearing from the International Court of Appeal. Then the FIA has decided to stop this International Court of Appeal in the light of new evidence and to present that to the World Council, so that's the problem."
However, he did admit that the whole scandal is damaging for Formula One. "It's affecting the sport. It's happened in athletics, it has happened with gold medal winners, it has happened with cycling, it has happened with football, and now it's something that's happening in Formula One. We are sorry that it happens in Formula One. Unfortunately we are in a position where we want the truth to appear. That's all that we want and all that we have been working for and we are confident that the truth will come through."
Todt went on to say that he felt the next four Grands Prix - the final four - would be better suited to Ferrari than Monza. "We just finished the debriefing, I had a discussion with our engineers. Definitely we have not been competitive this year on circuits where you need a lot of mechanical grip and where you have some important kerbs like Indianapolis and Montreal. So the worst circuits this year have been Monte Carlo, Canada, Budapest in qualifying and Monza. There is a question mark about Fuji because we have not been there, but we feel otherwise Spa, Shanghai and Brazil - there is no evidence that we couldn't be competitive.
"It is a very tough championship, mainly with a fight amongst two teams. It's enough to see the classification, since the beginning of the season, the lap times and sometimes they have been better than us, like today, and sometimes we have been better than them. Today - not only today, since the beginning of the weekend - they have been more competitive. And more reliable."
But in spite of the points position, where Kimi Raikkonen is five points ahead of teammate Felipe Massa, the Frenchman said that there are no plans to support one driver more than the other. "No, at the moment they will race."
He went on to say that Felipe Massa's rear suspension breakage hadn't yet been analysed, but was almost certainly a one-off problem. "We are going to investigate. We found where the problem was but we now have to disassemble the part and to understand exactly what was the problem. It's the first time we've faced this kind of problem apparently."