Nigel Stepney apologised to McLaren for 2007's spy scandal, but says he doesn't feel responsible.
Former Ferrari mechanic apologises to McLaren over spy scandal
Nigel Stepney has apologised to McLaren for 2007's Stepneygate spy scandal, but says he does not feel responsible for the row.
Stepney was at the heart of last year's spy scandal after he passed on Ferrari's technical secrets to then McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.
The resulting action by the FIA saw McLaren thrown out of the Constructors' Championship and handed a record £50 million fine. Stepney was also banned from working in F1 for life.
But while the former Ferrari mechanic admits to handing over the information to Coughlan, he says he never intended for it be used on McLaren's F1 cars. Rather he had hoped that himself and Coughlan could use it to team up and find other employment.
Defence
He told
Sky Sports' World Motorsports Show: "I don't feel responsible in anyway at all for what happened at McLaren.
"My original idea was to make contact with somebody, not to benefit, but to see what I could do somewhere else with a group of people.
"Obviously, it got a bit sensitive and somebody used information more than I actually thought it was, or not more than it should have been.
"It should never have been used to that extreme."
Fallout
Stepney also reckons the fallout from the spy scandal still needs to be properly addressed by the sport's key figures.
"There is a lot being said, I wouldn't say it is all correct, but there is a lot underneath that hasn't been said that should have been," he added.
"It's been dramatised for various other reasons, which we will have to go into at a later date.
"Some stuff has been done politically, some stuff should have been bought out in a different way, but the end result, who knows whether it was right or wrong to make the season as it was?
"Lewis Hamilton did a fantastic job there's no doubt about that."
As for his future, Stepney says he will remain in motorsport, although concedes that a return to F1 is out of the question.
"I've got a lot of other more interesting opportunities going back into the grass roots of motor racing," he said.
"Don't get me wrong, Formula One I've worked in for many years, I've enjoyed it, I've made a living out of it, it's been a very good experience in life, but I think I prefer to go into a sort of a grassroots racing again."
