An investigation has seemingly been launched after the cover was blown on the radical new ‘hole nose' on
Ferrari's F2008 ten weeks prior to its testing debut in Barcelona this week.
Italian magazine
Autosprint broke the story about the nose, including sketches of the innovation, back in February, raising suspicions that the infamous ‘Spygate' saga of last summer is not quite as firmly in the past as most within
Formula 1 had hoped.
Engineer Nigel Stepney was fired from the
Scuderia following the scandal that rocked the sport in 2007, with
McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan enduring a similar fate eight months later – the pair accused of sharing confidential design data. The Woking-based outfit was also fined a sporting record $100 million USD for its part in the affair.
According to Swiss publication
Blick, Maranello's technical director Aldo Costa was ‘horrified' about the leak, the Italian underlining that ‘very few' Ferrari employees even knew about the nose innovations when they were being tested in the team's wind tunnel. The newspaper added that an internal investigation is now underway.
