KEY POINTS:
Lewis Hamilton goes into this week's British Grand Prix desperately hoping that his campaign to win the world championship will not be destabilised in the fallout from the scandal in which McLaren's chief designer Mike Coughlan allegedly received information that was stolen from Ferrari and passed on to him by the Italian team's head of performance development, Nigel Stepney.
Coughlan, 48, has been suspended from his duties, leaving McLaren short of a key design staff member at a critical point of the season, when Ferrari have returned to the attack after a lacklustre spell in which McLaren proved dominant.
In June Hamilton won the two races in north America, in Montreal and Indianapolis, but Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari bounced back in last week's French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours which the Finn won from team-mate Felipe Massa, with Hamilton only third.
The timing of Ferrari's attack will cause as much disruption to McLaren's momentum, not just in the lead-up to this weekend's vital race at Silverstone, but over the remainder of the season.
Hamilton should be in a good position to challenge for victory first time out in his home race because developmental parts for his car were already in the pipeline.
But the suspension of his chief designer could have a serious negative influence on future development of the car, unless McLaren's design department proves sufficiently integrated to move another team member into the role.
The storm of controversy engulfed both teams on Wednesday, as new revelations alleged that hundreds of pages of Ferrari technical drawings had been found after a search by magistrates of Stepney's house in Modena, and by private detectives with a private search warrant of Coughlan's home in the UK.
McLaren issued a further statement on Wednesday, in which they sought to make very clear that no other personnel were involved.
Principals Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh will be extremely embarrassed and angered by any suggestion of wrongdoing or dishonesty on the team's behalf.
"Following our statement of 3rd July 2007 [when they announced the suspension of a senior member of their technical organisation] McLaren has completed a thorough investigation," it said, "and can confirm that no Ferrari intellectual property has been passed to any other members of the team or incorporated into its cars.
"McLaren has in the meanwhile openly disclosed these matters to the FIA and Ferrari and sought to satisfy any concerns that have arisen from this matter.
In order to address some of the speculation McLaren has invited the FIA to conduct a full review of its cars to satisfy itself that the team has not benefited from any intellectual property of another competitor."The key lies in the expression "to any other members" in the first paragraph, and the team are likely to show FIA representatives all of their development work in the last batch of races.
Meanwhile, the FIA issued their own statement, which said: "With the full cooperation of both teams the FIA has launched an investigation into matters involving Ferrari and McLaren Mercedes.
The remit of this investigation will focus solely on the requirements of the International Sporting Code and the Formula 1 regulations."The FIA refused to discuss possible penalties, should any be deemed applicable, but any change to the results of previous races is highly unlikely.
Even if the allegations against the pair are proved, demonstrating that McLaren's performance so far in 2007 was in any way linked to Ferrari intellectual property would prove difficult, if not impossible.
This is especially the case since Ferrari have had serious problems with the moving ground belt in their wind tunnel, and were also at one stage obliged to modify the floor of their cars.
However, the team have always adopted an aggressive policy towards breaches by personnel of intellectual property rights.
In April this year they were involved in a legal dispute that demonstrated the lengths to which they are prepared to go.
They brought a successful legal prosecution against two Toyota engineers, one of whom they had previously employed.
In 2003 Ferrari suspected that Angelo Santini, who worked at Ferrari from 1995 until the end of 2002 when he moved on to join Toyota, had passed on aerodynamic data to Mauro Iacconi.
They filed a complaint and criminal charges followed.
On 24 April this year, when the case was heard, the presiding magistrate sentenced Santini to nine months for industrial espionage and Iacconi to 16 months for receiving stolen information and passing it on to Toyota.
In their statement Ferrari said: "Ferrari has recently presented a case against Nigel Stepney and an engineer from the McLaren Mercedes team with the Modena Tribunal, concerning the theft of information.
Furthermore, legal action has been instigated in England and a search warrant has been issued concerning the engineer.
This produced a positive outcome.
"Ferrari reserve the right to consider all implications, be they criminal, civil or of any other nature, in accordance with the applicable rules."Ferrari and McLaren chiefs Jean Todt and Ron Dennis have worked together to launch a private investigation in the UK, which might only result in civil charges being brought here.
However, in Italy Ferrari are likely to launch criminal proceedings against both Stepney, who has publically maintained that he is innocent, and Coughlan.
- INDEPENDENT
