McLaren info not for Rival

The news came out when the sport's governing body the FIA made a transcript of last week's World Motorsport Council hearing relating to what has been dubbed "spygate 2" available to the public.

Engineer Mackareth, who was suspended by Renault when he was found to have loaded information about three McLaren systems, including their suspension dampers, onto their computer mainframe, said he instead took them for personal use.

The 77-page transcript of the hearing revealed that when asked at the about his part in the scandal, Mackareth said:"When I collected the documents, there were several reasons. I wanted to pull together a record of my experience at McLaren.

"There was also some professional interest and insecurity. I had no intention of disclosing the documents to anybody or making something of them. It was a personal record for me."

Renault backed their man, telling the council that they believed his actions not to be malicious, but simply the result of a stupid error of judgement.

Their technical director Bob Bell said: "Mr Mackereth is a very genuine and straightforward individual. He is someone I would trust.

"He is someone with a high degree or respect within his peer groups. That is true within McLaren as it is in Renault.

"His actions in this situation were stupidity, naivete and a degree or recklessness - and little more than that. There is no malevolence; there is no intention to deliberately do wrong or to cheat. This is not in his make-up. He is very genuinely one of the most straightforward engineers operating in Formula One."

Renault were found to be in breach of article 151(c) of the international sporting code, which prohibits "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally."

They were however, unpunished as the FIA did not find sufficient evidence to prove that they made use of the McLaren information.