Within two years of the debacle at the U.S. Grand Theft Auto at Indianapolis, we have arrived at Stepneygate. The latest chapter concerns supposedly damning e-mails between two McLaren drivers that betray the use of performance secrets stolen from Ferrari.

The pursuit of this issue by the Ferrari team combines its usual Machiavellian mindset with the beserk style reminiscent of Italian proscecutors. The integrity of Italy’s international symbol of style, speed and grace has been compromised and Ferrari has insisted on satisfaction from governing body FIA in the form of penalties against McLaren.

But how much of the issue is a criminal matter, how much is civil litigation for damages and what are the sporting issues?

At this stage it pays to remember that Giorgio Piola’s drawings appear nearly every week and betray the latest intimate details of each F1 team’s newest technical gambits.

Ferrari has accused Nigel Stepney of stealing the design documents, which would place the theft some time after late October. That’s when it was confirmed accused traitor Stepney would not move up in the Ferrari hierarchy. If so, who’s to know during the winter design period that next year’s plans for any team will produce more speed or less? (See Honda.)

In fact, the extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sports Council in July cleared McLaren of any theft of design ideas in its MP4-22 chassis.

Personally, if I’m getting a driver like Fernando Alonso, like McLaren was anticipating, I would be curious about something very specific at Ferrari. Alonso likes a slightly understeering front suspension on initial turn-in and won the world championship back-to-back with Renault on Michelins with just such a set-up. But with McLaren forced to move to Bridgestones along with all the other former Michelin teams this year, I would be curious about how to create a design that would enable Alonso to sustain his proven driving style on a Bridgestone tire that is different in concept and compound as well as construction.

Given that Kimi Raikkonen to a degree also likes a slightly understeering front end, Ferrari’s new design for 2007 might well render a few insights into how the longtime Bridgestone team planned to handle this issue with its new hire once he moved over from McLaren in the wake of Michael Schumacher’s retirement.

Alas, this is one small part of a much larger package. And, it’s an area where any experienced F1 engineer can likely find the necessary results with a proper testing and development procedure. It can rest on a counter-intuitive strategy such as last year’s Renault, which left extra weight bias in the rear of the car (in an effort to reduce tire wear despite Alonso’s induced understeer at the front end).

Alas, how much value is such information when one’s current car, the MP4-22 of McLaren, is an evolution of last year’s MP4-21?

Ultimately, imitating any other team’s approach limits a team to just that — the same results, instead of getting ahead. Picking up ground in an area of deficiency can be immensely helpful. But each year it’s clear how teams imitate one another with what can be gleaned from the naked eye and a stopwatch. In many cases, imitations can be completed in, say, the three weeks between the Australian opener and the Malaysian round. Such development is more than likely to be the subject of e-mails, particularly if a team is soundly beaten in the season’s opening round as was McLaren by Ferrari.

Employees regularly carry secrets from one team to another and in fact are hired just for that purpose. (See Jaguar’s pursuit of Adrian Newey and more recently his switch to Red Bull.) The theft of design secrets is a significant crime in a world where intellectual property rights are a major international issue. But to what extent does the FIA need to step into a legal matter in regard to its championship?

How much does the FIA owe to the International Sporting Regulations in this case beyond the banning of individuals?

That question is highly leveraged by Ferrari’s motivation to win a championship under CEO Jean Todt as well as new technical and sporting directors in the first year after the departure of Schumacher. The pressuring to repair a slight to Ferrari’s honor merely adds hubris. Apparently in response to this pressure from Ferrari, the FIA has issued letters soliciting information, which apparently turned up the issue of e-mails between Alonso and McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa.

As a journalist, one often wonders what goes on the other side of closed doors. But it is easy enough in this case to imagine Ferrari threatening to withdraw from the championship if McLaren was not investigated further over this insult by one of the British rival’s employees. Then there’s the ultimate dagger to the heart: Ferrari can suggest to the FIA that ancient rival Le Mans (where Todt directed Peugeot to victory in the 24-hour shortly before moving to F1) has a new formula coming out in 2010 that may appeal to the Italian company’s desire to produce a greener performance image through endurance racing.

Most of the issue concerns the rather obvious motivation of individuals, not teams. A Ferrari employee (Stepney according to Ferrari) trades information to a McLaren employee (Mike Coughlin, caught red-handed with received documents). Where’s the payoff? It’s in both individuals finding new, higher-priced jobs armed with maximum information, away from their present employers. Each culprit, should that include Stepney, runs the risk of criminal prosecution and a ruined career if either one gets caught by the employer.

As a sporting proposition, the FIA’s case rests on the issue of whether Coughlin was induced by his bosses to gain information purloined from Ferrari, or approved of him using it. Further, did any information gleaned have a material effect upon the world championship?

The FIA’s integrity rests on the propostion that it already has acknowledged it cannot prove this information was sought by the ownership of McLaren and instead is the work of one employee with possible ambitions elsewhere. It will have to continue to face up to this fact without knuckling under to Ferrari’s world championship ambitions. In other words, it will have to demonstrate that the FIA is in charge of all the teams.

That may mean some penalty to McLaren suitable to any material gain, but one that fits the obviously slight advantage and falls well short of exclusion of any team. As has been regularly perceived elsewhere, if this is the act of individuals Ferrari bears as much responsibility for having a rogue employee as McLaren.