Makes no sense, however.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t ... mula_1/article1975262.ece

Quote :

A leading Formula One mechanic is being investigated by police after allegations that he attempted to sabotage two Ferrari racing cars. Nigel Stepney, who earns £750,000 a year as Ferrari’s head of team performance development, is alleged to have interfered with the fuel system of cars driven by Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.
Mr Stepney, from Warwickshire, was reported to the Italian police after a mysterious white powder was found in the petrol tanks only days before the Monaco grand prix.
He was passed over for promotion earlier this year and is reported to have been looking to move to a new team. Since the mysterious powder was discovered, the Ferrari team’s performance has fallen in the past three grands prix.

Now, as far as i can tell, everybody and their dog is claiming that stepney has sabotaged the ferrari's by adding some sort of white powder into the fuel tank. However, this makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

"Since the mysterious powder was discovered, the Ferrari team’s performance has fallen in the past three grands prix."

Is it just me that thinks the white powder was actually some sort of performance enhancer? Obviously if the powder was found, all the parts would be replaced and stuff, so why has performance Dropped!?. Seems to me like ferrari got caught out cheating and are using stepney as a fall guy.

Possibly but tbh, I'd say that yeah, perhaps its something to help enhance the fuel to be more efficient but also, could be a straight up sabotage as well. We will never know but if I were being honest, as much of a red man as I am, I just think McLaren are doing very well and they've improved on their car over the past few Grand Prix so Ferrari not doing well is just down to the mechanics and car designers, just not really doing their job on improving the car.

Considering how dodgy this story is I think Ferrari are trying to pin something on this guy, he seems to be innocent. They claimed they couldn't contact him and didn't know where he was but...

"I'm on a planned holiday with Ash (his fiancee) and our baby," he said. "Why would anyone say I am not contactable? I booked the flights through the Ferrari travel office. They know where I am." Nigel Stepney

...apparently the first he knew of it was seeing the story online, and has had no contact from Ferrari. Perhaps this is a case of Ferrari pinning something on an innocent guy, who has just given them a hard time because he wanted a new job within the team.

I would also side with you on this, but if you knew the amount of sabotage that goes on in F1 (i have contacts on the inside *cue fearful music*) almost every race at least one team has something done to their cars to try and stop them finishing the race.

With the amount of cash Ferrari put in F1 he would be sacked and ANYTHING that white crap touched would be replaced - of course, if their performance is still falling it seems that it's probably something harmless and their getting a fall guy who was probably using some illegal performance addiditive under the advice of Ferrari

If this sabotage story is true, I think some ex-worker is soon going to sleep with the fishes... the Italian way of saying you're fired.

Ferrari's performance hasen't dropped drastically, only Kimi's form has deproved. The white powder may have been an intentional sabotage... Let's just leave this to the police.

The idea of Ferrari's performance being affected by this 'white powder' is ridiculous. Anything suspected of being faulty would be replaced, for one thing.

Another problem is that the FIA take fuel samples from all the cars to ensure that the fuel used matches the original standard sample provided by the fuel manufacturers at the beginning of the season. Any 'doping' would be immediately obvious to the FIA scrutineers. Also, Shell themselves take regular samples of fluids from the cars during a race weekend and it's very unlikely they'd miss any tampering.

Quote from StewartFisher :

The idea of Ferrari's performance being affected by this 'white powder' is ridiculous.

Kimi's performance, on the other hand...

He probably saw Jean Todt coming and tried to sweep it all into the exhaust.

:chairfall

All the parts were replaced once the white powder was discovered so performance was unaffected. They are just slow this year anyway.

Seems to me Stepney is being pushed out. I know he was unhappy at being 'poo pooed' following Ross's and others departures. I read reports that Stepney was unhappy with the shakeup. Maybe he felt he should have been given some kind of promotion.

Since when was it unusual to find "white powder" in the paddock of an F1 event? Especially, at Monaco....

Quote from nihil :

Since when was it unusual to find "white powder" in the paddock of an F1 event? Especially, at Monaco....

like it

Sabotage, people being framed, White powder being found.

Are we going back to the 1970's, soon they'll all have long hair and sideburns.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Kimi's performance, on the other hand...

He probably saw Jean Todt coming and tried to sweep it all into the exhaust.

LOL!

Some rumours about this incident suggest that he has been investigated for a long time, up to a year according to some source. More rumours suggest that he is wanted by Interpol.

Ferrari went to the court at the end of May with documents that suggest that Nigel was a part of it. I guess Ferrari must have had some idea of who it was when they found the powder. There are also reports of the same powder beeing found at Nigel's house.

This is pretty big according to another source who is working in F1.

Quote from DanneDA :

Some rumours about this incident suggest that he has been investigated for a long time, up to a year according to some source. More rumours suggest that he is wanted by Interpol.

Ferrari went to the court at the end of May with documents that suggest that Nigel was a part of it. I guess Ferrari must have had some idea of who it was when they found the powder. There are also reports of the same powder beeing found at Nigel's house.

This is pretty big according to another source who is working in F1.

If this happened over the last few months of last season when Ferrari was kicking everyone's ass, how come they still had the best package and winning back to back races with someone sabotageing there cars?

well seems to me like another excuse they use cause there losing thanks to Micheal Schumacher retiring


if they did get sabotaged , the guy could of used clutch fluid at least to show how much he dislikes them

even with enhanced engine improvement (if this is what this white powder is) it still wouldn't help Ferrari. their problems are in the chassis/aero department. At Indy the Mclarens were just plain slow in a straight line and that didn't stop them winning

This is what Peter Windsor says about the Ferrari performance this year. There's a lot more going on in that team than just this Stepney business.

"It’s becoming clear that McLaren has the car to beat. How has the team (a) achieved such a dramatic turnaround on its 2006 form, and (b) turned the tables on Ferrari since Barcelona?

In reply, I can only suggest that you refer to various editions of F1 Racing last winter, when we predicted categorically that Ferrari would go into decline in 2007 and that McLaren would win the world championship.
In the post-Newey era, team players like Neil Oatley and Patrick Lowe were always going to harness the best of everything at McLaren and eliminate the waste; Fernando Alonso was always going to give the team a new direction; and Lewis Hamilton – again as predicted – was always going to win races in his maiden season.
What did people think?
Did they honestly think that Kimi Raikkonen was going to jump into Michael’s car and win a World Championship?
Did they think that Felipe Massa had learned nothing from Michael?
Did they think that all the good people from the Michael era were going to stick around and continue to do exactly the same job?
Did they think that Renault, with Giancarlo Fisichella as their “spearhead”, were going to be as competitive as they were with Fernando?
As I said a few weeks ago, Ferrari have lost a lot of aero testing time over the past couple of months.
My Italian contacts also tell me that there has been – and still is - a “wholesale departure of white-collar aero guys” from Maranello.
Ferrari will always win races in the course of any season. Michael [Schumacher] showed them how to win championships.
Now he has gone – and the system is slowly changing as a result. What does that tell you?
Ferrari are big enough to regroup and recruit, of course…but it won’t be the same. "

The FiA tests the fuel in the car. Teams are required to give a sample to them before and after the race so they can be tested and compared to each other.

I bet they've banned "Sugar in your gastank" from being played on the radio at ferrari hq.

Ferrari just can't take the pain of losing, so they blame this guy :doh:

Quote from Tweaker :

Ferrari just can't take the pain of losing, so they blame this guy :doh:

Tweaker doesn't have everything in order up there so he thinks up nonsense and posts it on the forum :doh:


:feedtroll

Quote from PLAYLIFE :

Tweaker doesn't have everything in order up there so he thinks up nonsense and posts it on the forum :doh:


:feedtroll

Bit like what you just did then Armin