Ferrari has decided to drop all legal action against its British Formula 1 archrival McLaren for its illegal possession of technical data belonging to the Italian team, Ferrari announced in a press release on Friday.
''Ferrari acknowledges McLaren's reiterated apology for the well-known events which occurred during the 2007 Formula 1 Championship and, in the best interests of Formula 1 and taking into account the formal closure in December 2007 of the FIA and FIA World Motor Sport Council proceedings against McLaren, it confirms that it has accepted to put an end to all outstanding controversies between the two teams,'' the statement said.
Ferrari added that it will donate to charity the concluding payment it received from McLaren.
Ferrari said in the same statement that it will still pursue its claims against Nigel Stepney, the team's former chief engineer believed to have been responsible for giving a 780-page dossier of Ferrari secrets to McLaren's chief designer Mike Coughlan ahead of the 2007 season.
The team's suit against Stepney was filed in an Italian court while the one against McLaren had been presented in Britain.
Already in January Ferrari team chief Stefano Domenicali said the team wanted to put aside the bitterness generated by the case of industrial espionage.
He said that in the interests of Formula 1, Ferrari was determined to look forward, not back, and hoped for a rancour-free battle on the track against the British team in 2008.
''Wounds like these don't heal easily. What happened was bad for sport. I haven't forgotten what happened,'' Domenicali added.
After finding McLaren guilty of industrial espionage last September, the international racing federation FIA stripped the British team of all its points and by doing so gave Ferrari the 2007 constructors' title.
Ferrari went on to clinch the drivers' championship with Kimi Raikkonen in the last race of the season when the Finn won the Brazilian Grand Prix while McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who went into the race at the top of the standings with seven points on the Ferrari driver, came in only 7th due to a mistake on his part and mechanical problems.
