(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-20 10:13

ROME - Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has invited the British photocopy shop employee who helped uncover the McLaren spy scandal to Italy to thank him.

"If it had not been for that photocopy man we would not have known anything about this story," Montezemolo told reporters on Wednesday at the carmaker's end-of-year celebration at their Maranello headquarters.

"That's why we have invited him to the Mugello race track and will invite him to our factory."

The anonymous employee tipped off Ferrari that somebody had copied 780 pages of their technical data in June.

The dossier was found at the home of McLaren's former chief designer Mike Coughlan and the scandal eventually cost his team the constructors' title and a $100-million fine.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen went on to edge McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso for the drivers' title.

Montezemolo had already dedicated Ferrari's win at the Belgian Grand Prix, where the Italian team virtually secured the constructors' championship, to the employee and to fans.

Montezemolo praised Raikkonen and his Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa and said he did not see twice world champion Fernando Alonso joining Ferrari in the future.

"If we have a problem, it is not a problem with the drivers," he told Rai Italian television.

He also said he would step down as president of Italy's business federation Confindustria in March, which would enable him to concentrate more on Ferrari.