Ahead of Thursday's FIA hearing into the Renault spying affair, their chances of avoiding serious punishment have been boosted.
McLaren asked to clarify "factual errors"
Renault's chances of avoiding serious sanction in the spying case raised by McLaren-Mercedes appear to have improved after Formula One's FIA governing body forced the latter to clear up "certain factual errors" in a briefing leaked to the media a fortnight ago.
The briefing outlined details of their case against Renault, which was instigated after McLaren themselves were found guilty of possessing confidential Ferrari information in September.
The allegations stem from a move made by engineer Phil Mackereth from McLaren to the Anglo-French constructor in September 2006. Mackereth took with him information belonging to McLaren on floppy disks - the leaked information detailing the case against Renault.
Inaccuracies
But ahead of Thursday's World Motor Sport Council meeting in Monaco which will rule on the affair, the FIA have asked McLaren to clear up inaccuracies contained in the briefing - the timing of the move seemingly weakening their case against Renault.
According to the McLaren statement, issued on Wednesday:
* McLaren initially stated there were 18 witness statements from Renault employees admitting they had viewed McLaren confidential information.
In truth, 13 Renault F1 employees provided 18 witness statements, with nine admitting to viewing and discussing the confidential technical information belonging to McLaren.
* McLaren stated the confidential information on computer disks was uploaded on to 11 Renault computers.
Instead, Mackereth copied the information on to 11 computer disks.
The information on the disks was uploaded by Renault IT staff in September 2006 on to Renault's T:drive and transferred by Mackereth to his personal home directory stored on Renault's network server.
A back-up copy of the material on Mackereth's personal directory was made on to an unknown number of Renault's back-up servers/tapes.
* McLaren revealed the information on the 11 computer disks taken by Mackereth included 780 individual drawings.
In fact, the information taken by Mr Mackereth on floppy disks, in hard-copy form and by email amounts to 762 pages when printed.
On the 11 computer disks, there are only 18 individual technical drawings.
* Finally, McLaren said the information amounted to the "entire technical blueprint of the 2006 and 2007 McLaren car".
In contrast, the drawings and information taken by Mackereth constitute a technical definition of the fundamental layout of the 2007 McLaren car, and the technical details of its innovative and performance-enhancing systems.
McLaren launched the case after being fined $100 million and stripped of their 2007 Constructors' Championship points following the WMSC's hearing into the so-called 'Stepneygate' saga involving Ferrari.
However, even though the latest development suggests that Renault will not face similar sanction, because the team's employees did view McLaren information it remains likely that some form of punishment will be imposed.
