Stepney warned Coughlan of Ferrari floor

McLaren will face an extraordinary meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council next week to face charges of 'fraudulent conduct' over the possession of secret Ferrari documents from March to July this year.

The matter was originally only thought to relate to a 780-page Ferrari technical dossier, which McLaren said Coughlan had in his possession only from the end of April.

However, a reliable source has revealed to this week's Autosport magazine that the March date the FIA has referred to relates to early contact between Stepney and Coughlan.

In particular, the source says it relates to a specific email that Stepney sent to Coughlan, revealing Ferrari's floor design and tipping the McLaren designer off about taking possible action about it.

Although it is not known if Coughlan passed on this information to the team, McLaren did ask for a rule clarification about Ferrari's movable floor design at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

That action resulted in the FIA changing its floor tests and outlawing the design Ferrari ran at the time - which is believed to have hindered their form.

The background to McLaren's actions in Melbourne will likely play a key part in the FIA World Motor Sport Council hearing next week, as the sport's governing body faces the task of working out whether or not the team did anything wrong.

Autosport also reveals that the Surrey copy shop that tipped off Ferrari about Coughlan having the 780-page dossier was asked to scan the information in order to transfer it into electronic format and in to a computer disc.

It is understood that after the information had been put on disk, the actual Ferrari document was shredded and burned in Coughlan's back garden.

Coughlan is understood to have been advised to destroy the document after showing a glimpse of it to McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale at a golf club. It is not known, however, when this incident took place.