Todt: Ferrari have nothing to hide

"I have read so many times 'wait until you know all what Ferrari has been doing', but I'm quite [happy with] my conscience over the past 15 years and, believe me, if Ferrari had been [doing anything], after all these controversies, it would have come out," Todt told The Times in an interview on Thursday.

Sacked Ferrari engineer Stepney has been accused of passing Ferrari information to McLaren's suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan, in a scandal that led to McLaren being excluded from this year's constructors' championship and fined a record $100 million.

Stepney, who has denied passing the information to McLaren, faces criminal charges in Italy.

This week, the Briton claimed Ferrari had also been in possession of McLaren data and said Ferrari had gotten off lightly in the spying affair.

"I got information on them [McLaren]," Stepney was quoted as saying by grandprix.com. "Ferrari got off lightly. I got information about when they [McLaren] were stopping.

"I got weight distribution, I got other aspects of various parts of their car and I was Ferrari's employee at the time.

"I was aware of certain stuff they [McLaren] were doing at tests, fuel levels for example. I think Ferrari should have been docked points personally.

"The question is: did I use the information, did I talk about it? I spoke to some people [at Ferrari] about it. I can't prove it, there are no e-mails or anything, points about the fuel and the differences between the teams were discussed inside.

"But as well as McLaren having an advantage, did Ferrari have an advantage? I think so. It looks like information was flowing only one way. No one has been balancing the argument, no one has asked the question."

Todt said he was aware of Stepney's unhappiness following the exit of technical director Ross Brawn.

Todt admitted Stepney was not an easy person, but the Ferrari boss defended his professionalism.

"He was a difficult character. He was not an easy person, but he was a good professional," Todt added. "When Ross left he was probably aiming for a stronger position than the one we were suggesting for him. He was calling into us and saying, 'I don't want to come to races any more.'

"Then, after a good night, the emotion would calm down and he would say, 'OK, I am happy to come'.

"We could not change our organisation every week, so I said, 'Finished. He will not come any more.

"In this sense I did defend him, it is true, but I was never expecting the guy to lose his head. He lost his head, that's all. Unfortunately, sometimes you have people who lose the sense of things and it's a shame because we all have some personal responsibilities.

"You should have some limits, some discipline and he did not know how to place limits on himself and the problem is that there is a high price to pay."