Ferrari hail photocopy shop employee
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo dedicated his team's Belgian Grand Prix triumph on Sunday to an employee at an English photocopy shop
"It's a perfect victory, for which I want to thank Raikkonen, Massa, (team boss Jean) Todt and all these guys," he said after Finland's Kimi Raikkonen led Brazilian teammate Felipe Massa across the finish line.
"I want to dedicate it to our fans who believe in the fairness of the sport and to this English gentleman who in the month of June wanted to inform us that someone linked to an opponent team entered into his shop and asked him to copy dozens of pages containing technical information about our car.
"Without him it would never have been possible to shine the light on to one of the worst pages in the history of motorsport," he added.
Sunday's one-two mathematically sealed the constructors' championship for Ferrari, subject to a possible appeal from rivals McLaren.
The Mercedes-powered team, who took a one-two in Italy last weekend and had led Ferrari by 23 points, were stripped of all their constructors' points and fined $100 million on Thursday for spying on Ferrari.
That controversy blew up in July after a 780-page dossier of Ferrari technical information was found at the home of McLaren's now-suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan.
Ferrari say an employee of the shop in southern England tipped them off that somebody had come in to copy a significant quantity of their documents.
That person was later identified as Coughlan's wife, Trudy.
Ferrari have accused former employee Nigel Stepney of passing the information to Coughlan and are taking legal action against him in Italy as well as against the Coughlan's in Britain.
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments