Ferrari on Wednesday hit out at alleged espionage involving championship leader McLaren which has rocked the Formula One world.
"It's a case of unprecedented gravity," Ferrari President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo said Wednesday.
"For the moment I don't want to add anything," he said.
The Italian team, which had already fired former top engineer Nigel Stepney for a suspected sabotage attempt, has now opened a second legal proceeding against him for allegedly passing technical information to a top McLaren designer in April.
They obtained a British search warrant and found Ferrari documents at the house of the designer, Mike Coughlan.
McLaren on Wednesday assured Ferrari that none of its intellectual property was used on McLaren race cars.
In response to urging from the British team, world motor racing authority FIA opened an inquiry into the case later on Wednesday.
It said it had the "full cooperation" of both teams.
The probe, FIA said, would not concern the legal aspects of the case but only focus on any possible breaches of FIA regulations.
McLaren has suspended Coughlan pending the results of the criminal probe being carried out by prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Modena, close to Ferrari's base at Maranello.
The news of the espionage probe supercharged the atmosphere surrounding Sunday's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where new McLaren star Lewis Hamilton will be aiming for his debut win on home soil to hold off a Ferrari rally.
Last month Ferrari filed their first criminal suit against long-time technical staffer Stepney for possible attempted sabotage before the Monaco Grand Prix.
Stepney denied all wrongdoing and accused Ferrari of waging a "dirty tricks" campaign against him.
Judicial sources said the case was linked to the discovery of a powder, whose exact nature has yet to be established, on the fuel tanks of drivers Felipe Massa and Kimmi Raikkonen six days before the race.
Stepney, 48, had reportedly been unhappy at Ferrari since the departure of his immediate boss, tactical supremo Ross Brawn, last year.
He was moved out of the race squad and made head of team performance development - a move he considered a demotion to a backroom job and led to an interview in the British press criticising the team.
He has been widely linked to a move to Honda.
Stepney is a highly popular ex-pit crew leader who became Brawn's No.2 and was instrumental in Ferrari's six constructors' and five drivers' titles between 1999 and 2004.
The rivalry between the two teams dates back several years, since the re-emergence of Ferrari as a powerful force in the F1 paddock during the late 1990s.
The famed red cars went on to dominate championship after championship in the early 2000s under the lead of German driving legend Michael Schumacher.
This season's championship has boosted the rivalry between the two teams, who are now the only realistic challengers for the constructors and drivers titles.
McLaren's Hamilton currently leads the drivers' standings by 14 points from team-mate Fernando Alonso, with Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen in third and fourth respectively.
The British outfit also leads the constructors' championship from Ferrari by 25 points.
McLaren's lead took a major knock in Sunday's French Grand Prix where Ferrari came home one-two with Raikkonen posting a morale-boosting second win of the season.
