So the action from Silverstone was somewhat entertaining, as I rose early to watch the practice. Which was enjoyable to see “Jaguar” struggling a bit to keep up with the Ferrari’s. Of course as the ever sharp Peter Windsor spouted. Perhaps they were just keeping a low profile in regards to the current Stepney Gate fiasco.
Of which a little bit more was divulged. Bob Varsha recounted the main talking points, while stating that they weren’t going to try rehashing all of it. Since obviously the blogosphere was in high gear and there was still more to follow undoutabely.
But Varsha did note that its now been revealed that Nigel Stepney met with Mike Coughlan in April and reportedly passed along a packet containing roughly 500-700 internal Ferrari technical documents… Supposedly an Italian got suspicious upon request being made for copying of the documents which sported the official Ferrari masthead.
While Windsor stated that he was ready to go onto record over knowing that this type of activity occurs all of the time. It seemed obvious to me that Professor Matchett was extremely choked up over the matter as it involves the very man that gave him his start as a Benetton mechanic. Ultimately it sounds like this level of industrial espionage occurs when team members have sour grapes with their employer.
Meanwhile in Toronto it was business as usual with that dreaded Hamburgalur stealing provisional pole position once again. And he really did literally steal it today, as Oriel Servia was only .018 seconds behind Sea Bass. While Justin Wilson was a solid third with the Minardi Team USA teammates Doornbos and Clarke respectively rounding out the top five. It’s funny to note that Wilson claimed that he and Oriel both had trouble with traffic… Uh traffic in Champ Cars? With a decimated field of ONLY 17 entries… Yet Bourdais did state that the track was quite slippery, which can become a bit hairy between the concrete jersey barriers.
And in a similar occurrence that previously transpired during a Champ Car race this season. The SPEED TV posse was wondering aloud if McLaren had put a mixed set ‘O Bridgestone’s on Hamilton’s chassis as one front tire had the white “softer” marking while the other didn’t. As you’re not allowed to run mixed set of tires.
Turns out a similar thing had occurred when the Champ Car driver in question was spotted with only three red sidewall tires and “Juan” black. As he’d rubbed the paint off while scraping a wall.
In young Jaguar’s situation apparently the graining of the softer compound was so severe under lengthy running, that the tire’s black rubber had simply covered the painted white stripe…
