McLaren knew Ferrari secrets in March, says Todt

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) McLaren had Ferrari secrets in their possession before the start of the Formula One season and used them to their advantage, Ferrari boss Jean Todt said today.

The Frenchman told the Ferrari Web site (www.ferrariworld.com) that the situation was like ''playing a hand of poker with a rival who already knows what cards you are holding.'' Speaking ''in the cold light of day'' after championship leaders McLaren went unpunished by the governing body for their role in a spying controversy that has gripped the sport, Todt was open about his bitterness.

The Frenchman said he simply could not understand the International Automobile Federation's decision to impose no penalty despite finding McLaren guilty of breaking the rules.

He openly accused former Ferrari employee Nigel Stepney of feeding McLaren sensitive information that was then used against his own team.

Stepney, now facing legal action in Italy, has denied sending 780 pages of technical data to McLaren's now-suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan.

McLaren say they were unaware Coughlan had that information until being informed by Ferrari on July 3 but Todt referred to earlier leaks.

''During yesterday's meeting, the McLaren bosses, with no exceptions, admitted that their chief designer had obtained since back in March, prior to the Australian GP, documents from Nigel Stepney,'' said Todt.

''Some of this data was used to prepare a clarification request submitted to the FIA, aimed clearly at us.'' PERFORMANCE ADVANTAGE The FIA introduced more stringent tests after Melbourne, following a McLaren query, to prevent teams from gaining a performance advantage by using cars with so-called 'flexible floors'.

Ferrari won in Australia with Kimi Raikkonen but were beaten in the next race in Malaysia by McLaren's double world champion Fernando Alonso. They now lead Ferrari by 27 points with seven races remaining.

''Such information was in fact used to obtain an advantage over us: not through an improvement in their performance, but instead through limiting ours,'' said Todt.

He poured scorn on a defence by the Mercedes-powered team that the Ferrari employee had been acting as a whistleblower.

''It should be noted that usually, an informant or whistleblower goes to the competent authority to denounce something, whereas in this case he went to Ferrari's main rival,'' said the Ferrari boss.

Todt said McLaren had asked Coughlan to tell Stepney not to send any more information but added: ''It is a shame that before this, Coughlan asked him for information on our brake balance system, then went to lunch with him in Spain, before calmly returning home with 780 pages of designs, diagrams, data and a whole lot more.'' Todt said he had also agreed with McLaren on June 9 to sign an accord aimed at establishing a better relationship between the teams.

''So, on the one hand, they had come to say 'let us trust one another,' and on the other they were hiding serious facts such as those just stated above,'' he said.

Reuters BJR VP0115