17/09/2007
NEWS STORY
In a move that one might describe as rubbing McLaren's nose in it, Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has dedicated Kimi Raikkonen's Belgian GP win to the copy shop employee who first tipped off the Italian team that a woman - later to be revealed as Mike Coughlan's wife, Trudy - was attempting to have a whole load of documents copied.
Seeing that the copy shop was near Woking, and the documents were clearly marked Ferrari, the (anonymous) employee contacted the Italian team and thus began the next twist in one of the strangest episodes in sporting history.
"It's a perfect victory, for which I want to thank Raikkonen, Massa, Todt and all these guys," said the Italian yesterday, according to Reuters.
"I want to dedicate it to our fans who believe in the fairness of the sport," he continued, "and to the English gentleman who in the month of June wanted to inform us that someone linked to an opponent team entered his shop and asked him to copy dozens of pages containing technical information about our car. Without him it would never have been possible to shine the light on to one of the worst pages in the history of motorsport."
Barring an appeal against its sentence from McLaren, yesterday's 1-2 effectively gives Ferrari the 2007 Constructors' Championship title.
Those of you who could do with a laugh -and let's face it we all need one right now - check out this 'blow by blow' account of the spy saga courtesy of El Pais. Many thanks to 'Bowman' for the link.
It's in Spanish, but the pictures tell the story, and then some. Priceless!