By Luke Marc Carlile-Stanton
April 24 2007

The long running espionage saga today folded as two former Toyota and Ferrari staff members were jailed after being found guilty.

The two men in question are Mauro Iacconi and Angelo Santini who together have been found guilty in a Modena court of stealing design information from Ferrari before switching to Toyota Racing in 2002.

Between them the men recieved 25 month sentences but it is reported that an appeal is imminent.

The story began back at the launch of the TF103, Raced by Olivier Panis and Cristiano Da Matta. It was argued that Toyota had produced a racing car that was visibly similar to Ferrari's F2002 from the 2002 F1 season. The F2002 one of the most succesful racing car's in Formula 1 history. However Toyota have (unsuprisngly) always denied that the stolen information that got into their hands was used for the design of the TF103.

After the incident had come to public attention, Iacconi and Santini were firerd from Toyota. A lot of the top brass from Toyota at the time were also accused. Boss Ove Anderson, designer Gustav Brunner and aerodynamics chief Rene Hilhorst all now longer work for the team.