In court this week, where Coughlan made his first public appearance since the controversy came to light, it was officially confirmed that the scandal blew up after a photocopying shop tipped off Ferrari that the McLaren employee's wife had tried to copy the confidential documents.
Furthermore, the case widened McLaren's involvement beyond just Coughlan when Ferrari said it was aware the team's managing director Jonathan Neale knew that his member of staff had the documents. However, Ferrari could not nail down when and how Neale had found out.
That news in itself was big enough, but perhaps more significant was the fact that the FIA said they had reason to believe McLaren had 'unauthorised possession' of the Ferrari documents from March - rather than the April date that has been bandied about up until now.
The contents of Coughlan's 'confession' are unknown, but perhaps in there it has become clear that Coughlan has had the documents even longer than was initially stated by McLaren.
And should it be proved that he had knowledge of the Ferrari F2007, including what the FIA has said is: "information that could be used to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and/or run a 2007 Ferrari Formula One car', then that could have very important implications on the case.
The FIA International Sporting Code lists a scale of penalties for breach of the Article 151C that McLaren have been summoned to answer.
They go from a reprimand, fines and time penalties, to exclusion, suspension and disqualification.
opcorn:
