FIA plays down latest espionage scandal

Carlos Garcia, the President of the Spanish motor sport federation and Vice-President of the FIA, hopes that the new espionage scandal, that involves Renault, will not affect the future of Spanish driver Fernando Alonso. In an interview with the newspaper 'AS', Garcia also played down the new spy allegations.

On 6 December, Renault will face the World Motor Sport Council in the new espionage case that has hit F1. McLaren accuses Renault of possessing over thirty confidential files of data. These files would contain more than 780 technical drawings of the 2006 and 2007 McLaren cars according to the Woking-based team.

Carlos Garcia has played down the accusations as he declares that the exchange of documents has always been a part of the sport: "I can not say anything about this matter. The only thing is that this sort of thing has always happened in formula one. I don't know whether you can call it espionage or not. It used to be called exchanging documents and now it is spying, but historically it has always existed in the sport."

It is rumored that if Renault would receive a fine on the scale of McLaren's $100 million fine earlier this year, the French team would consider leaving F1. This could affect the future of Fernando Alonso, who is believed to have postponed his decision to race for Renault in 2008 until after the WMSC on 6 December.