How Stasi agents were able to steal the secrets of the Formula 1 team

In the 2001 season, one of the Renault employees said that while working on the engine, it felt like they were being filmed by a video camera. And at that time in Formula 1 there was a serious scandal. Of course, already at that time there was talk that the teams were spying on each other and this did not surprise anyone. But this time, the next development was stolen not by one of the colleagues, but by an ex-employee of the GDR special services.

Stolen concept

Renault is a team that has often used non-standard solutions in F1. Take, for example, the turbo engine, which appeared at the World Cup after the French team. And in 2000, the concern decided that it was necessary to return to F1 by acquiring the Benetton team. And even in this case, the engineers did not want to follow the classical path. Engines where the camber angle ranged from 72 to 90 degrees were relevant then, but the new team decided that an angle of 111 degrees would be appropriate.

But what’s the point?

Everything is extremely simple here, a large camber angle provides a smaller center of gravity, and for a car this is one of the main factors. But here it is not so simple, because in this case, all the teams have already used this option. There are also disadvantages, for example, this is a lack of torque. In fact, there was not much experience. But Renault chose their own path, and in 2001 a device with the RS21 index appeared in the season.

Of course, the development was very difficult, and the motor lost about 100 horsepower to many competitors, and there were some doubts in terms of reliability. Pilots for a long time located at the end of the standings.

Improvements. How was everything?

Once again, the French failed at the Grand Prix in Britain, and the management decided to share the main problem, which partly explained such a poor condition of the engine. Engineers were in a hurry to design, and all because the original design was simply stolen.

It was unexpectedly discovered that part of the data simply did not exist, the chief minder of the team spoke about this. So I just had to throw out a lot of the work after getting inside the system. Of course, initially no one believed in this, because they thought that it was simply impossible. But after checking everything turned out to be exactly the same. And it was a really big problem. But after work, we can say that there is absolutely nothing in the engine that others could see.

Of course, after everything was discovered, the main elements of the engine were changed. And when a little less than a year was left before the start, it became clear that problems at the initial stage simply could not be avoided. But the question arises, was it necessary to look for extraordinary solutions? Now this can be discussed endlessly.

Germany trail

After the discovery of the leak, the team decided to involve French specialists in the investigation so that they would not only improve security, but also be able to find the thieves.

And according to the results of the work, the experts found that the hackers conducted their activities from the territory of Germany, and with a high degree of probability there is a connection with the GDR. In fact, throughout the country there are many people with experience in such work.

But the team is confident that the break-in was entirely from the outside, and no one inside helped in this.

As for the engine itself with 111 degrees, even now there is no unequivocal opinion on this matter, it is neither a failure nor a success. A few years later, the specialists managed to reach the required level, and in the 2003 season the engine was already producing 830 horses. And it was in this year that Fernando Alonso was able to become a champion.