German Car Zone

F1’s long running Toyota espionage saga has ended with the two former Ferrari employees handed jail sentences.

Mauro Iacconi and Angelo Santini have been found guilty in a Modena court of stealing design information from Ferrari before switching to Toyota in 2002, according to Italian newspapers on Tuesday.

Their combined 25-month sentences were suspended, but both men will reportedly appeal.

The story first came to attention in 2003, when Toyota was accused of producing a car that was visibly very similar to the ultra-successful 2002 Ferrari single seater.

The men were fired, and Toyota officials including boss Ove Andersson, designer Gustav Brunner and aerodynamics chief Rene Hilhorst were all also implicated. All five no longer work for Toyota.

Toyota consistently denied that the stolen information had been used for the ‘TF103′ car.

LMAO! Thats what you get when You f*ck with one of the worlds super sports...

... and still no win, let alone a WC.
They would have needed Schumi, Brawn, Byrne too to succed.

Well, they're all spying each other. For example Ferrari has a separate spy division and they have an own truck that they bring to every GP.

Ha ha ha...c'mon there is a reason why teams hire people from other successful teams...these men just had the bad luck of getting caught red handed. LOL

Nothing new here.

Yep, just the cynical truth.

Ferrari's CIA headquarters?

This was once a feature in the pre race talk on ITV about how the teams spy on each other!

Can't really remember it too much but was very interesting.