The plot was allegedly uncovered when Coughlan’s wife took design drawings of the 780 Ferrari to a photocopying shop in Surrey, and a staff member grew suspicious.
Coughlan is understood to have received the documents by courier, but he has not confirmed the source of the documents.
Stepney has been fired by Ferrari and is now in hiding after fleeing Italy with his girlfriend and daughter amid reports of threats and intimidation, culminating in a high speed car chase and the discovery of a tracking device on his car.
Ron Dennis, the McLaren team boss, has stated, “The first thing that must be established is that there is no other team’s intellectual property rights on our car, never has been and never will be.”
F1 teams typically hire photographers to capture detailed images of rival cars, leading most teams to erect screens around their cars in the pit lane.
Accusations of outright espionage are less common, but it’s not the first time F1 has been mired in controversy.
In 1978 the Arrows team was established when disaffected members of the Shadow team walked out, taking designs for the DN8 with them. When the Arrows A1 emerged the following year bearing a striking resemblance to the Shadow car a hefty fine was imposed upon the fledgling team.
More recently, in 2001 Jean-Jacques His, Renault’s technical director, claimed industrial espionage undertaken by a former member of the Stasi East German secret police was a key factor behind the poor performance of Jenson Button.
“There are lots of people in Germany who have experience of this kind of work,” he said at the time, and claimed hackers had breached Renault’s computer systems when the new 111-degree V10 engine was in development and deleted key designs.
“Someone had got into the system. We did not believe it at first, but then we were shown what information had gone,” added His, proof that industrial espionage is a common risk, or that blaming spies for stealing your designs is the equivalent of blaming the dog for eating your homework in F1 circles.