As McLaren celebrates the FIA’s decision not to issue a penalty for the team’s part in the F1 spying scandal, a new storm was brewing over the sport as Ferrari today issued fresh allegations of copying, this time against Honda.
‘There is growing evidence that Honda Racing’s current championship campaign is not wholly based on original material,’ said a statement from the Italian team. ‘Specifically, that they have been copying the Ferrari seasons 1991, 1992 and 1993’.
‘Honda’s performance this season is too familiar to be mere coincidence,’ said a Maranello insider. ‘The mediocre performance, the patchy reliability, the dispirited drivers, these are all things that have clearly been obtained from Ferrari’s period of being rubbish in the early ‘90s’.
However, Honda was quick to rebuff any allegations of copying. ‘Honda Racing denies any suggestion that it has knowingly copied data or strategy from Ferrari, either current or when they were shit,’ said a spokesman. ‘Throughout the entire F1 spying scandal we have been entirely open and honest about our involvement. Specifically, that our awful season is entirely modelled on the dismal efforts of Footwork during the 1995 championship. We are confident that this will become clear during the forthcoming Hungarian Grand Prix where we have asked Barrichello to get himself run over by the marshalling car’.
