Italian magistrates deny McLaren claims

Magistrates representatives visited the motorhome of the Woking-based team on Saturday to deliver "avviso di garanzia' - legal notices that some team members are under investigation over Formula One's spy saga.

That move caused McLaren to issue a statement on Sunday morning, claiming the timing was done deliberately to try and hurt their efforts in winning the Italian Grand Prix.

But Italian Minister of Justice Clemente Mastella was quoted in Gazzetta dello Sport this morning insisting that there had been no outside influence on their decision to act.

"According to some, Ferrari put pressure on the magistracy, which by contrast always operates autonomously," he said.

"When sport manages to safeguard itself independently there's no intervention by the magistracy. But if there are obvious violations of the law beyond the sporting sphere, then ordinary magistracy intervenes and there's no overlapping."

Despite McLaren's statement in the morning, team boss Ron Dennis was much calmer about the matter when asked after the race.

"The gentlemen were from the magistrate's office and were not police," he told reporters about the visit. "They were extremely polite and wanted to be very discreet.

"There was a very simple meeting which had no aggression to it whatsoever. It was purely needed to establish who would be needed to represent McLaren, if needed, in Italy. It's an extremely common legal process in Italy."