Ferrari not involved in legal case over F1 data, Mercedes says

It emerged last week that Mercedes is taking legal action against Hoyle ahead of a planned new-year move to Ferrari.

But Mercedes has made it clear that it does not believe any information has made its way to Ferrari, adding it does not believe the Scuderia had any involvement.

"The investigation has shown no reason to believe that information has been transferred to Ferrari nor have any of the court documents made any allegation regarding any inappropriate conduct by Ferrari," said Mercedes in a statement.

The world champion team added it plans to continue legal proceedings against Hoyle while it predicts it will take between two and four months to retrieve the confidential information.

"There are on-going internal investigations, regarding confidential information being removed from Mercedes by Mr Hoyle, in order to protect against potential damage to both Mercedes and any company which could potentially receive such information.

"Mercedes will continue with these investigations until it can conclude that all the confidential information is recovered, which is anticipated to take a further two-four months.

"Mercedes will continue to protect its interests, including carrying on legal proceedings against Mr Hoyle, and continue to protect against potential inappropriate transfer of confidential information within the motorsport industry."

Speaking about the engineer in question on Monday, Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne said: "He has not been recruited yet.

"There was an English lawyer who tried to do some sort of leaks, but there is no case, no situation.

"This person isn't even recruited yet so really this is something about nothing.