F1 News
- July 3, 2007
Stepney Gone
Ferrari have announced that Nigel Stepney is no longer employed by the team.
Nigel has been at the heart of an investigation into sabotage allegations around the Monaco GP.
Ferrari confirmed that they were looking into the allegations internally, as well as a Police investigation that is ongoing. Today they announced that they have decided to terminate his contract.
Nigel has maintained his innocence in the allegations, and the thinking around the pit is that it would have been next to impossible for him to have done what is being said (tampered with the fuel, however it was discovered at the factory before the race weekend).
Nigel is currently on holiday in the Philippines, and is expected back towards the end of the week.
This has implications for the Ferrari team in more than one way, it may disrupt the current engineering teams, as Nigel has been the go to man for a long time. As well as this, he is a long term friend of Ross Brawn, who it is widely believed that Ferrari I trying to groom into becoming the team head.
Other rumors have had Ross talking to Honda and Toyota as well, and now that none of his long term friends and colleges (Nigel, Michael Schumacher and Rory Byrne)
One thing is for sure, Nigel will not be without a job for long, as most of the grid would love to employ him, especially if it would help bring Ross Brawn along.
