FREE SPEACH in speedy quest for freee speech i am re posting this.

In February 2007, Stepney made public comments regarding his "unhappiness" following the team’s reorganization which resulted from Ross Brawn’s departure.
I am looking at spending a year away from Ferrari, I'm not currently happy with the situation within the team - I really want to move forward with my career and that's something that's not happening right now. Ideally, I'd like to move into a new environment here at Ferrari - but if an opportunity arose with another team, I would definitely consider it”
Later that month, Ferrari announced another change in the team structure which saw Stepney appointed as head of Team Performance Development: "After many years spent working on the Formula One circuits, the last 13 of those as part of the Ferrari Race Team, Nigel Stepney, with the approval of the company, has chosen to take on a different role that will see him no longer have to attend the races

The main point that you seem to think that Ferrari should have been punished. I am not discounting the fact that a member of the Ferrari team was caught (by Ferrari originally) cheating and by definition means: “Cheating is defined as an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others. Cheating implies the breaking of RULES.”
In this situation by cheating I mean giving help to another team which in this case was Mclaren. The way in which Stepney was cheating was to have made a copy of a Ferrari document which he gave to Coughlan of Mclaren.
Ferrari were unaware that their technical information had been STOLEN until they received a tip from an employee in a photocopying shop. Now, once Stepney steels the document (taking it off site without permission) he is breaking Ferrari’s team laws and principles. Subsequently voiding his membership of the Ferrari team. Due to Stepney acting alone and not coercing (yess any one with any conscience would have needed forcing with some pressure to commit such an atrocity) any members of the Ferrari team to act with him.
Definition of team being: A team comprises any group of people or animals linked in a common purpose.
Subsequently the Ferrari team were not helping Mclaren through the form of cheating. However Stepney was.
What we don’t know is the motive? Going on what Stepney had said, we can only assume he acted out of bitterness and wanted revenge. (Revenge for what? not getting what he wanted? not getting something that was never his………sounds rather diluded to me)
Coughlan of Mclaren was in possession of 780 pages of Ferrari documentation, and his wife is alleged to have taken them to a photocopying shop near Woking to make more copies which (due to the fact they were attempting to make copies of it ) we can only assume and with good reason they were planning on distributing around the Mclaren base.
For Ferrari to cheat it would be rather irrational. Why would a team who wants to win the world championship want to help through the act of cheating another team? This is irrational and as you read it does not make sense does it?
This brings us to a nice analogy.
Why would smart students cheat in a test? Why would the joint favourites (along with Mclaren) cheat to win the world championship? why break a fundemental rule? Doesn’t make sense does it?
We can now revert to the FIA for some closure on the issue. The FIA issued a statement detailing its reasons behind the sanctions imposed on McLaren. In the statement, the FIA said that emails between the McLaren drivers PROVED that the British-based team used information leaked from title rivals Ferrari. (By Stepney who acted alone) The FIA statement also said "The emails show unequivocally that both Mr. Alonso and Mr. de la Rosa received confidential Ferrari information via Mike Coughlan. Both drivers knew that this information was confidential Ferrari information and that both knew that the information was being received by Coughlan from Nigel Stepney.
Due to the data being used, and due to it being used by De La Rosa we we can assume that it had helped in the development of the car through testing. Therefore the whole team became involved.
Im going to stop now so I can get a head start on the mobs that will be inevitably be chasing after me with pitch forks, but il leave u with this quote from David Hume
“Truth springs from argument amongst friends”
and I think it just has.