Journalist admits Alonso-de la Rosa email fake
It was reported by the news agency Associated Press that Pino Allievi, who for years has covered formula one for the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, last Friday "invented" the contents of an exchange that suggested the McLaren drivers knew confidential information about Ferrari's car designs.
Allievi made clear on Monday, however, that his original article stated in no uncertain terms that the email quotations were hypothetical.
The espionage affair this week will move to the World Motor Sport Council, where McLaren is to face new evidence – to be provided both by the FIA and also by Ferrari – that it used the 780-pages of Ferrari information possessed earlier this year by suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan.
The new evidence may include emails and text messages, the FIA confirmed at Monza.
09/10/07 (GMM) A journalist has admitted that he invented the contents of the supposed email that may be part of FIA's 'new evidence' against McLaren.
As the espionage saga scaled new heights in the Monza paddock, La Gazzetta dello Sport published this exchange between Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso: "Do you know that I've found out how Ferrari is able to get its tires to work to perfection?" de la Rosa said.
"Nigel Stepney told Mike Coughlan."
"I don't believe it," Alonso replied.
But Italian journalist Pino Allievi has now confessed to concocting the exchange in order to make his article about the existence of the email "more credible".
"I made a free interpretation of what might have been said in the email," he told AP, insisting that the hypothetical nature of the drivers' dialogue was mentioned on his article published on Friday.