Ecclestone: « McLaren can receive penalty points »

The F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone mentioned the possibility that McLaren could start its 2008 season with a points penalty if it is discovered that the new car is based on information from Ferrari.

“I hope it won’t be the case, but this could happen,” Ecclestone said, speaking about a hypothetical points penalty, in an interview with the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport.

A transcript was also published on the official F1 website on Wednesday.

McLaren was stripped of all its points in the Constructors’ Championship this season and fined 100 million dollars for possessing technical information from Ferrari.

A new espionage case broke out at the beginning of the month when the 2006 constructors’ world champion, Renault, was found in possession of unauthorized information from McLaren.

Representatives of the French team have been summoned to a hearing by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) in Monaco on December 6.

« I don’t know the extent of what they have done and what they have not done, » said Ecclestone.

« I think the difference between them and McLaren is that McLaren had a continuous flow of information from one person, whereas for Renault, someone stole a lot of drawings all at once. »

Ecclestone stated that the FIA was keen to stay out of the controversy.

« If the McLaren team had handled the situation much more clearly, we would not have had the problems we encountered this year. This must be a case involving the police and the court. They have better tools to discover the truth, » he added.

In other comments, Ecclestone praised Kimi Räikkönen as a deserving champion and also praised the Briton Lewis Hamilton, saying he is the best rookie he has ever seen.

He finally mentioned Robert Kubica, a driver at BMW, and the German Sebastian Vettel at Toro Rosso as the new drivers to watch, but primarily talks about the situation of two drivers with more experience behind them: Ralf Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella.

« Both have been in teams for a very long time and have not been able to achieve better results than those they have garnered, » said Ecclestone about the two drivers who will participate in the Jerez tests with Force India next week.

« They must take into account the less competitive environment in which they will operate at the beginning of December and whether it is therefore reasonable to opt for this choice. Maybe if these drivers end up changing teams, they’ll wake up, » he concluded.