Sep.30 (GMM) Norbert Haug on Sunday had little sympathy for Ferrari after the Italian team's tyre gaffe in the Japanese grand prix.

Felipe Massa is now out of the running for the drivers' title, and Kimi Raikkonen is a distant 17 points behind Lewis Hamilton, amid Ferrari's complaint that it only found out after the race that the FIA had forbidden cars to start the race without extreme wet tyres.

"The message reached the other ten teams," Haug, competition director for McLaren's engine and equity partner Mercedes, told German television.

Referring almost certainly to the recent espionage scandal - a bitter conflict that cost McLaren $100m and expulsion from the constructors' championship - he added: "There have already been punishments with even less proof.

"Ferrari always excite themselves when they do not win," said the German. "That is not new," he told the broadcaster RTL.

Haug refused to speculate as to how the FIA stewards' email about the rule change only arrived in sporting boss Stefano Domenicali's laptop inbox nearly 90 minutes too late.

"I am not the Ferrari press person -- I have no idea what they were doing at noon," he added.