MONZA is one of the greatest theatres of motorsport, an emotive, historic parkland venue built in 1922. The trees shade the track. With five races remaining and four drivers in the hunt for the title, this is the perfect place to be. Or it was until they threw a bucket of cold water over it.

On the eve of the race weekend, at Ferrari’s home track, the governing body, the FIA, reopened the McLaren/Ferrari espionage case, citing new evidence. Having reserved the right to throw McLaren out of the 2007 and 2008 championships if information came to light that the technical blueprint of the Ferrari car had spread beyond a rogue McLaren employee and into the organisation, the hearing will be held on Thursday, just before next weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

For me this has all the feel of a witch-hunt, driven by the very people who have a primary responsibility to the sport. At a time when we should be excitedly micro-analysing the performance of the contenders, we’re caught up in this story. Many worldly and wise friends in the paddock yesterday, such as Sir Jackie Stewart and Murray Walker, expressed sadness at events.

Fernando Alonso and tester Pedro de la Rosa have been thrust to the front of the story after the McLaren drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, were invited to tell what they knew. They are being positioned as whistleblowers. Apparently this new “information”, shared in an e-mail in March between the Spaniards, is not exactly a smoking gun.

But it is a fact that the information has gone further into the organisation than McLaren claimed in the original hearing. In all the leaked letters and positioning there is the feeling of a plan, an end game – and it’s difficult not to see that through the prism of past controversies, often at around this time of year, involving Ferrari’s fight for the world championship. Think back to Alonso’s incorrect grid penalty here last year in the midst of his title fight with Ferrari. Think back to three years ago when the Michelin tyres used by Ferrari’s rivals were suddenly declared too wide, having been the same size for the previous three years.

If McLaren have broken the rules, they should be punished. But if the FIA finds them guilty and bars them from this year’s championship and probably the next, it will have a profound effect on the sport. Manufacturers and sponsors will all react to the damaged credibility.

We have two magnificent grands prix coming up in the next week, yet the sport’s focus is going to be on a courtroom in Paris that not one fan cares about or really understands. Inside the paddock we can’t fathom how, previously, two Toyota F1 employees can be handed prison sentences for industrial espionage using Ferrari software, yet the FIA was not interested in getting involved, and how Colin Kolles from Spyker could walk down the pit lane with a drawing from rival Toro Rosso presented as evidence of cloned cars, yet the FIA took no action.

So what is the driving force here? Does it involve the threatened breakaway GPMA series that Ron Dennis was involved in? Did Dennis try to torpedo key people out of their jobs? Is the FIA looking for McLaren heads to roll? I think McLaren are in for major pain next Thursday even though the root cause of this whole issue is a disaffected Ferrari man.

We can hope that Bernie Ecclestone will play his hand and say, “You are not interrupting the drivers’ championship,” but even he doesn’t always win. He tried hard to sort out the tyre fiasco at Indiana-polis in 2005 but was unable to.

If the FIA takes further constructors’ points from McLaren, it will cost the team tens of millions of pounds and generate potential difficulties with sponsor and driver contracts, but at least it will not wreck the future of Formula One. If it bars them from the remaining races in this year’s championship and beyond, it will be like hitting the self-destruct button.

Let’s finish on a sporting note.

The low downforce challenges of Monza, with 225mph straights and 77% of the track driven at full throttle, is tough on engines, as is next weekend’s race in Spa. All four Ferrari and McLaren drivers are on fresh engines this weekend that they must use for both races to avoid penalties. The cars dance on the narrow, moderately bumpy 3.6mile track as the drivers wrestle with the low downforce and drag configuration, bringing the cars down from more than 200mph to 70mph in less than 100m.

Kimi Raikkonen had an enormous accident when apparently the dynamics of the braking and bumps combination simply turned him into the barriers at tremendous speed. He lines up only fifth today. McLaren lock out the front row, with Alonso looking about a tenth of a second faster than Hamilton. Both are comfortably quicker than the Ferraris. Form here suggests that McLaren should take a bigger championship lead into the Paris hearing this week.