Motor Sport: Coughlan Will Tell All About How He Got Hold of Ferrari Data

Mike Coughlan, the McLaren chief designer, yesterday struck a deal with Ferrari whereby he will divulge full details of how their confidential design documents came into his hands, in return for them ending their high court proceedings against him.

Coughlan and his wife Trudy, whose visit to a photocopying shop near Woking to copy more than 780 pages of data alerted Ferrari to the matter, have agreed to submit a sworn affidavit to the Italian team. This will contain details of all they know about the affair and they will continue to cooperate with Ferrari's investigation.

Ferrari's lawyers were due to question Coughlan in court again yesterday but after negotiations on Tuesday a compromise was agreed between the two parties and yesterday's hearing was canceled. In return Ferrari have agreed to withdraw their request to the high court to use such information and material collected, including the affidavit, in proceedings in Italy against their former employee, the Briton Nigel Stepney, whom they suspect of passing the documents to Coughlan.

The FIA, which has launched an investigation into the furore, could refer the matter to its world motor sport council, which has the power to adjudicate on whether McLaren is guilty of using another team's technology. "We have no comment to make at this stage," an FIA spokesman, Richard Woods, said yesterday. Last week the FIA said its only interest related to any possible breach of the formula one regulations or sporting code. However, the world motor sport council has a wider range of penalties at its disposal - such as disqualification or loss of points - which it can apply if its rules have been infringed.

Last week McLaren offered up their MP4-22 challenger for the governing body to carry out a technical inspection to show that there was no facet of its design that could be linked to the Ferrari data. This move was well received but it is believed that the FIA would like to clarify when Jonathan Neale, McLaren's managing director, was informed that Coughlan had the Ferrari data in his possession.

McLaren had no comment yesterday but a source close to the team said they "were confident" there were no problems vindicating their position. Ferrari's spokesman, Luca Colajanni, said: "All we can tell you today is that there was an agreement on outstanding procedural matters and we will not be making the [Coughlan] affidavit available to the Italian courts."