17/09/2007
NEWS STORY
Jean Todt has revealed that Kimi Raikkonen gave evidence against his former employers (McLaren) to last week's WMSC hearing.
The Frenchman referred to recent talk of 'skeletons' in Ferrari's closet, by which he appears to refer to speculation - recently suggested by Mika Salo, who replaced Michael Schumacher for several races in 1999 - that Ferrari used to monitor rival teams' radio communications.
Admitting that Ferrari did indeed do this, Todt revealed that it was common practice and that Raikkonen confirmed that he was aware of such a practice when he was with McLaren.
"Kimi made a witness statement about radio communication from his former team," said the Frenchman, before adding: "I read so much about the skeleton for Ferrari, the big surprise, what has happened over the last ten years.
"It's only skeleton, if I use the word, which was submitted was radio communication, and in our business, most of the top teams...
"You know it's easy, all of you, you can just select radio communication and you will hear some of the teams, but not all of them, because some of them are encrypted. We are encrypted, our major competitor is encrypted, and others are encrypted.
"Believe me, the level of information you get is not very high but it does exist and of course our QC asked one of the major witnesses about that. So that was the skeleton which we heard so much about."
The Frenchman also confirmed that one of the reasons Ross Brawn attended the hearing was in reference to the Italian team's 'skeleton'.