Newsgroup: it.sport.formula1.moderato
Titolo: [ENG] So is it over?

Source: 
grandprix.com
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19675.html
The announcement that McLaren has decided not to appeal against the World
Council's astonishing $100m penalty comes at the end of a week of intense
negotiation between then team, the FIA and various other parties,
including other F1 teams.
McLaren was known to be deeply unhappy about the scale of the penalty,
given the scarcity of hard evidence, but said that it would pay the $100m
fine if there was "closure" in relation to the matter as it did not want
to damage the sport by continuing the fight in the Appeal Court or in a
civil action. There is little doubt that civil action would have been
possible given the scale of the penalty but it is not clear whether this
would have produced a different result. McLaren has admitted that
according to the FIA rules, as they stand, the team is guilty because a
team member did receive papers that came from Ferrari. The argument was
really about whether the team knew about the information and whether it
was used. McLaren appears to have decided that the publicity it has
received has been sufficiently positive to warrant not bothering with an
appeal, which would simply keep the story in the news and thus damage the
sport.
However, it is unlikely that such a step would have been taken without
some concessions and our understand is that "closure" amounted to a list
of things which McLaren wanted sorted out: including an end to any civil
legal action against the team in Italy, a resolution to the question of
how the FIA would inspect the 2008 car and a deal over the team's
benefits in 2008 and 2009.
The exact nature of the horse-trading is unclear.
We understand that the fine will not all go to the FIA. The McLaren
benefits for 2007 (which is probably around $40m) will be divided up by
the Formula One group and will go to the other F1 teams. The remaining
money will go into a trust fund to help pay for scholarships for young
drivers around the world, with the aim of spreading the sport into new
regions, notably in Asia, the Middle East and perhaps even Africa.
There have been rumours for some days that there are other teams who may
have to face up to claims about using McLaren intellectual property this
year and we hear that these are not part of the settlement. It remains to
be seen whether or not McLaren will make a complaint to the FIA or
whether there will be civil legal action. Both are possible because the
FIA allowed Ferrari to take action against Toyota a couple of years ago
without getting involved and there is no reason why the same should not
be allowed for McLaren.
There have been suggestions in recent days that the negotiations and may
even have included the sale of Fernando Alonso's McLaren contract to
Ferrari - in exchange for a sizeable sum of money. This would rid McLaren
of the Alonso problem, provide funding to pay the fine (and to acquire
another driver) and give Ferrari a stronger driver line-up in the future.
Print News Story
Copyright 1988-2007, Inside F1, Inc.
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 civil action....
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