Stepney is accused of leaking Ferrari secrets

Former Ferrari performance director Nigel Stepney, who is the subject of a criminal investigation in Italy, has asked for a meeting with the team.

His lawyer Sonia Bartolini said: "Stepney has stressed he is innocent and is ready to give the names of the people he suspects."

She said Ferrari had "signalled its readiness" to meet her client.

Stepney is accused of leaking secrets to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan, who was found to have 780 pages of Ferrari documents in his house.

Bartolini added that Stepney "wants those who are guilty identified".

McLaren contend that no-one else in the company was involved and have suspended Coughlan.

McLaren and Ferrari are locked in battles on and off the track

But they face a hearing before motorsport's governing body the FIA on 26 July to answer charges relating to article 151c of F1's International Sporting Code.

This deals with "any fraudulent conduct, or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition, or to the interests of motorsport generally".

McLaren could be docked points or even disqualified from the world championship this year if they are found guilty.

Coughlan is facing legal action by Ferrari at the High Court in London.

Reports in Italy say that in an affidavit given to Ferrari and the FIA he claims that he showed the documents to other McLaren senior staff, who he says all distanced themselves from the documents and urged him to destroy them.

McLaren denied this in a statement on Monday, saying that no other team member knew about the documents until 3 July.

Coughlan has reportedly yet to reveal who sent him the documents, saying only that he received them in the post.

The saga has also dragged in the Honda team, whose team boss Nick Fry has admitted meeting Coughlan and Stepney in June.

Fry insists that the meeting was to discuss to discuss employment possibilities, and a Honda statement added that at "no point was any confidential information offered or received".

FIA president Max Mosley has said there was "no suggestion Honda are in any way involved" in the spying scandal.

The FIA refused to comment when asked by the BBC why Honda were also not the subject of a hearing at the World Motor Sport Council.

Stepney and Coughlan worked together at Ferrari in the 1990s and also at Benetton.