Formula One news

Fry defends handling of espionage affair

Nick Fry has defended his involvement in the Ferrari-McLaren espionage saga after he was criticised for a delayed statement saying that he had met with both Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan. 

The Honda F1 team CEO announced only on Friday that he had a meeting with the former Ferrari mechanic and suspended McLaren chief designer earlier this year, yet it had been revealed a few days prior on Tuesday that Stepney had been sacked by Ferrari and a McLaren employee had been suspended after Ferrari technical documents had been found at his home. 

It has been suggested that Fry's delayed response did little to help McLaren's case as until then it appeared more likely that the Ferrari information could have been used to benefit the MP4-22. However, now it seems that Coughlan, Stepney and possibly others were planning on taking the privileged drawings elsewhere and the revelation actually supports McLaren's statement saying that the documents were nothing to do with the Woking-based outfit but for personal use. 

When asked about the suggestion that his delayed response had hurt McLaren, Fry told autosport.com: "I think that's a ludicrous suggestion, probably put forward by McLaren. McLaren did something on Tuesday when I was on my way to Japan, as it happens. There was no reason at that point for me to ring up a competitor and say 'oh by the way, we just interviewed one of your chaps'. 

"I mean, you interview people on the basis that it is confidential, and if people thought that you were instantly going to ring up their boss and say, 'oh by the way...', you'd be giving away a lot of trust there. 

"Logistically, firstly McLaren hadn't mentioned Mike Coughlan's name, so it would have been bizarre for me to ring up and make that telephone call at that stage. Secondly, I was en route to Japan and was in Japan on Wednesday. When I got back on Thursday afternoon, which was 4:00 pm into Heathrow, my PR lady briefed me that from other sources - probably Nigel - mentioned had been made that I'd seen both of them. And at that point I phoned Martin Whitmarsh. 

"That was around 5:00 pm on Thursday afternoon. I landed at 4:00 pm and within an hour, having been briefed, I rang Martin and said, 'It's now got this far, and Mike's name is clearly out in the open, just be aware that he did come and see me. Nothing was offered and nothing was accepted.'" 

There was speculation in the Silverstone paddock over the weekend that there was more to Fry's official statement on Friday than it actually stated. The carefully worded phrase "nothing was offered and nothing was accepted" also appeared in Friday's announcement but he would do better to dismiss such rumours about his involvement if he was to strongly deny any mention during that meeting of technical information being passed on. 

Since the downcast speculation has started up, Fry told Reuters some positive news that a technical guru was being lined up for Christmas but that "maybe we could do something before, I don't know". However, that will do little to diffuse the negative press surrounding neither Honda's entangling in Formula One's latest scandal nor the team's disastrous performance on the track so far this season.

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