McLaren accepted yesterday that Ferrari data had penetrated deeper into their team than suspected and issued a public apology for the spying controversy.

In a statement, the F1 team also offered to impose a moratorium on the development of three separate systems on their new car "to avoid even the possibility of Ferrari information influencing our performance during 2008".

In return, the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) said it would seek to cancel a meeting called for Feb. 14 to assess McLaren's 2008 car after a technical report last week raised suspicions about it.

The FIA fined McLaren a record $100 million and stripped them of their constructors' points in September after concluding that they benefitted from unauthorised possession of Ferrari information.

The Mercedes-powered team had risked a further points penalty, one that threatened to hit Briton Lewis Hamilton's title challenge next season, if their 2008 car was found to be tainted with Ferrari data.

However the FIA said that, subsequent to McLaren's apology and undertakings, president Max Mosley had asked the World Motor Sport Council for their consent to cancel the meeting and "in the interests of the sport, to consider this matter closed."

The 2008 season starts in Australia in March.

"McLaren wish to make a public apology to the FIA, Ferrari, the F1 community and to fans throughout the world," the team said.

"Changes are now being made which will ensure that nothing comparable to what has taken place will ever happen again."

In a separate letter sent by McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh to Mosley, the team revealed how much the controversy had affected them.

"Apart from the morale-sapping consequence within the team, it's ability to continue its task of generating investment has, as I am sure anyone can imagine, been made impossible," it said.