Toyota Respond to Claims by Cologne's DA

Toyota Motorsport issued a statement in response to claims made by Cologne's District Attorney in today's Gazzetta dello Sport, in which DA Siegmar Raupach claimed Toyota are using stolen data from Ferrari in their wind tunnel's computer programmes, also stating the German-based team are refusing to return the code to Italy.

Toyota's statement appears below, in full:

As we have not received a direct transcript of the Public Prosecutor's statement to the Gazzetta dello Sport, it is difficult to comment.

The article does not reflect the true facts of the situation.

We can however confirm that the actual statements that are reflected in the article contain a number of serious omissions and inaccuracies which create an entirely incorrect impression of the true facts surrounding the situation.

We have given our full co-operation to the German Authorities.

As only one example, we can clearly state that we have given our full co-operation to the investigating authorities at the time they visited our facilities. All requested support was given and copies of requested materials and equipment provided freely and willingly. Since this time we have received no further request for co-operation or support from the German authorities.

True facts surrounding the surrender of materials to the Italian Authorities.

As the requested materials, which have been freely and willingly handed over to the authorities, contain many confidential materials - which are the property of Toyota Motorsport - our lawyers applied to the German court requesting, in protection of our rights, that only materials relevant to the case and containing no confidential information relevant to Toyota should be transferred to Italy.

This is a request we find understandable and very reasonable. This application was opposed by the Public Prosecutor. However, the Cologne Appellate Court found in favour of Toyota and issued an order on October 13th instructing the Public Prosecutor to provide our lawyers with copies of all the relevant materials in order to remove Toyota Motorsport's confidential information before transferring materials to Italy.

To date both the Court and our lawyers are still waiting for the Public Prosecutor's office to release the materials in order that the appropriate checks may be made. Only this inexplicable attitude on the part of the Public Prosecutor's office has made it impossible to release the appropriate materials as ordered by the Court and delayed the transfer to Italy.

General statement

We regret that former employees of Toyota Motorsport are alleged to have been involved in the improper acquisition of materials as we understand during their employment at Ferrari.

As the Gazzetta dello Sport has accurately reflected in previous articles movement of people between teams is a frequent occurrence in Formula One, and the risk of data leakage a general problem.

We have conducted a comprehensive internal investigation into our entire operations since this issue has occurred and taken every possible measure to further improve our rigorous control systems. This not only includes countermeasures to ensure that data import does not take place but also that the measures taken to protect our own intellectual property comply with the obligations that any company has in this respect.

At this stage the allegations only involve individuals and their behaviour, Toyota Motorsport has never voluntarily been involved in unfair acquisition or use of material or data from others.

We are committed to winning and believe that winning performance will only come from achieving competitive advantage which is derived from our unique solutions and technology a large amount of which can be found in our cars.

We have confidence in both the Italian and German Judicial processes and are confident that they will reach the right decision in this case.