By GMM

The appearance of Ferrari's radical new nose innovation at the Barcelona test on Monday confirmed that espionage could still be a factor at the Italian team.

Alleged Ferrari spy Nigel Stepney no longer works for the Maranello based team, but the technical secret about the 'hole nose' nonetheless emerged in the pages of an Italian magazine some ten weeks ago.

Autosprint broke the story about the nose, including sketches of the innovation, in its pages in February, raising suspicions that the leaking of confidential and sensitive design data has not stopped, notwithstanding Stepney's firing and McLaren's $100m fine.

According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, technical director Aldo Costa was 'horrified' about the leak, confiding that "very few" Ferrari workers even knew about the nose solutions when they were being tested in the wind tunnel.

Blick claims that an internal investigation into the leak is in progress.