Paris - The president of motorsport's ruling body FIA Max Mosley on Tuesday said that he had instructed the FIA Court of Appeal to hear evidence of an alleged sabotage affair. McLaren-Mercedes last week escaped sanctions in connection with the affair, due to insufficient evidence.
It had been alleged that former McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan received classified material from former Ferrari head of performance Nigel Stepney. McLaren insisted that the material was not known to other team officials and not used to alter the car.
"The WMSC (World Motor Sport Council) is satisfied that McLaren- Mercedes was in possession of confidential Ferrari information and is therefore in breach of article 151c of the International Sporting Code.
"However, there is insufficient evidence that this information was used in such a way as to interfere improperly with the FIA Formula One World Championship. We therefore impose no penalty," the FIA said in a statement at the time.
FIA however on Monday received a letter from the Italian motorsport authority CSAI in which the body said they were unhappy that McLaren had not been punished and that Ferrari had not been heard.
Mosley on Tuesday said that he had decided to reopen the case because of "the importance of public confidence in the outcome".
Mosley wrote in his letter to CSAI that the Ferrari documents were, according to McLaren, acquired privately by a disgruntled employee who intended to leave.
"They inferred he never used Ferrari's information to help McLaren because it was to be part of his private database as technical director for another team."
The FIA boss said that there were "a number of suspicious elements", which had been taken into account by the WMSC.
However: "In the absence of unambiguous evidence that McLaren as a team had received and used the Ferrari information, the Council was left with McLaren's responsibility for its employee.
"Exclusion or withdrawal of points did not seem appropriate if it really was just a case of a rogue employee acquiring information for his own purposes."
In what seems to be an about-turn, Mosley said that he would: "Send this matter to the FIA Court of Appeal under article 23.1 of the FIA Statutes with a request that the Court hear both Ferrari and McLaren and any other championship competitor who so requests.
"This will determine whether the decision of the WMSC was appropriate and, if not, substitute such other decision as may be just."
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton leads in the drivers' standings with 70 points, two clear of his team-mate Fernando Alonso. Ferrari's Felipe Massa and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen are third and fourth with 59 and 52 points respectively.
