A great Formula one season is under threat from the Ferrari/McLaren spy scandal

Colourful though the Tour de France cycle race is it is difficult to enthuse about a sport in which drug abuse is endemic. The same applies to Track and Field. Professional football has been sullied with dodgy deals over the years and there are plenty of famous names around whose bank accounts have been boosted by "bungs". Cricket has had its drugs and betting scandals and petty crime has been rife with ball tampering and other deceits. And Formula one has had its troubles as well - but never has there been a scandal quite like the current one involving employees of the Ferrari and McLaren teams.

FIA enquiry will struggle to get at the truth

Motorsport's governing body, the FIA, has announced an enquiry into the revelation that McLaren's Chief Designer, Mike Coughlan, obtained more than 700 pages of detailed information about the design of the 2007 season Ferrari F1 car. The allegation is that Coughlan was passed these documents by sacked Ferrari Technical Manager Nigel Stepney - an accusation that Stepney has stringently denied. Unless further revelations emerge in the near future it is my guess that the FIA is going to struggle to get to the full truth of this sordid affair. On the face of it this seems to be the foolish initiative of a couple of recalcitrant Brits who knew each other well and saw some sort of personal advantage could accrue from the treachery. That at any rate is likely to be the line of the two teams and it may be also be similar to what the FIA concludes. But there could be much more to the story than just the iniquitous behaviour of a couple of renegades.

Coughlan was not "any old employee"

Disgraced McLaren man Mike Coughlan was not a junior member of the McLaren F1 team - he was their Chief Designer and as such had overall responsibility for the management of the design team. The excellent 2007 McLaren car is principally his baby. Whilst the car emerged at the Australian Grand Prix in March (well before the date that Coughlan obtained the Ferrari material) car design never stands still and there will have been many refinements made as the season has progressed. McLaren boss Ron Dennis has denied out of hand that the design of any elements of the latest car have been influenced by Coughlan' s insider knowledge: "McLaren has completed a thorough investigation and can confirm that no Ferrari intellectual property has been passed to any other members of the team or incorporated into its cars". I have no doubt that Dennis, a man who bridles at any suggestion of impropriety, believes this to be true. But the FIA will find it very difficult to prove this conclusively.

You don't need to copy design details - but insider knowledge can still give you an advantage

The performance margins in Formula one are very slight indeed. The tenth placed qualifier at the recent British Grand Prix was only just over one second slower than Lewis Hamilton on pole - the blink of an eye. There are rarely, these days, major changes to car design that allow one team to leapfrog the others. You won't see one of the teams with a six-wheeled car in Germany next weekend (a surprise that Tyrell sprang on F1 way back in 1976)! This is for two main reasons. First the F1 regulations are so tight that there is only a fairly limited amount of design flexibility - certainly for major components. Secondly the teams these days are so well funded and so technically advanced that it is very rare that any one team gets an inspired breakthrough that gives a major advantage. It's all about the application of many hundreds of tiny adjustments in the search for the optimum set-up for every race. Given this is it not likely that if the Chief Designer (no less) of one team gets hold of all the design secrets of his main rival he cannot but act with knowledge of these secrets - however subliminally this may take place? So whilst Ron Dennis is no doubt correct that there is no Ferrari "intellectual property" in the McLaren car can he really put his hand on his heart and say that no tweaking to the McLaren car set-up at any recent Grand Prix made by his Chief Designer's team has not been influenced by that Chief Designer's insider knowledge of the Ferrari design?

The FIA may need the Scottish "Non-proven" verdict

The FIA will be striving not to ruin the 2007 Formula one season by imposing penalties on McLaren. It's the first truly great season for years with the emergence of Lewis Hamilton and the raw battle that is underway between the tyro star, the world champion Alonso and a fast improving Ferrari team. But if they do find not just skulduggery by an errant employee but also that this deceitfulness has given McLaren an advantage then they will have no alternative but to come down hard on the British team. But this will be very difficult to prove conclusively and it may be that the verdict often applied in the Scottish courts "Non-proven" will have to apply in this case. For the time being anyway!