Stepney cries foul at Ferrari

Nigel Stepney insists he has been made a scapegoat in the 'spy' saga that has rocked Formula One.

Stepney, formerly Ferrari's head of performance development, was sacked by the Italian team on Tuesday after being accused of leaking secrets to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan.

He told the Sunday Times: "I've been framed. I've been with Ferrari for 14 years and there has been a lot of controversy over the years and I obviously know where the bodies are buried."

Coughlan was suspended by the Woking-based team before Honda boss Nick Fry then became embroiled in the scandal when it emerged he had recently met Stepney, although Fry claims it was merely to discuss prospective job opportunities.

With civil proceedings active, Stepney and Coughlan are under investigation for the theft of technical information from Ferrari.

The Englishman also insisted he had not passed any documents on to Coughlan saying: "I have no idea how he got them, no idea at all. We met at the end of April in Spain just to catch-up between old friends."

He revealed the meeting was witnessed by Mike Gascoigne, the chief technical officer of Spyker, and also backed up Fry's insistence that their meeting was merely about possible employment.

"I went to Honda to discuss employment. At no time did Mike offer any technical information to Nick. We didn't need to," he added.

Meanwhile, Stepney's lawyer Sonia Bartolini indicated they would sue Ferrari for unfair dismissal.

"We are going to fight this and it is to be expected that we will challenge Ferrari's actions in dismissing Nigel," she said.