SILVERSTONE, England, July 6 (Reuters) - Honda became the third team embroiled in Formula One's 'spy' controversy on Friday when they confirmed that the two men accused in the affair had approached them looking for jobs.

The British-based team, race winners last year but struggling with just one point so far this season, made clear however that they had not been offered any leaked Ferrari technical information.

"Earlier this year Nigel Stepney, formerly of Scuderia Ferrari, requested a meeting with (Honda team boss) Nick Fry," Honda said in a statement at the British Grand Prix.

"Nigel Stepney subsequently met in June of this year with Nick Fry and brought with him Mike Coughlan of McLaren, with a view to investigating job opportunities within the Honda Racing F1 team," it added.

"Honda would like to stress that at no point during this meeting was any confidential information offered or received," the team said.

"Nick Fry informed (Ferrari boss) Jean Todt and (McLaren's) Ron Dennis of the meeting and has offered to provide any information required by Ferrari and McLaren."

Ferrari dismissed former technical manager Stepney, a 47-year-old Briton who played an important role in the team's golden period of dominance with seven times world champion Michael Schumacher, earlier in the week.

LEGAL ACTION

Stepney, who has denied any wrongdoing, fell out with the team following the departure of technical director and compatriot Ross Brawn at the end of last year.

He accused Ferrari of 'dirty tricks' after media allegations of attempted sabotage emerged in June and had been linked to Honda since February, when he made clear he was open to offers from other teams.

Ferrari have taken legal action against Stepney and a senior McLaren technical employee, widely identified in newspapers as chief designer Coughlan although still not named by that team, over "the theft of technical information".

Championship leaders McLaren have assured Ferrari that none of the leaked information has been used in designing their race-winning car.

"Speaking for our company, I'm sure we will be completely vindicated with the passing of time," Dennis told a news conference on Friday.

"I doubt whether there will be many apologies afterwards, but the truth will come out," he said, criticising those who jumped to accuse McLaren.

The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) is checking the McLaren cars and is expected to reveal their findings by the end of the month.

Dennis said McLaren could show, through their internal company processes, that their car was clean.

"Part of the information that we have made available to the FIA is all the details of all the developments in our cars, not only for the period following the 28th of April but also the preceding months," he declared.

"All of the drawings are available for all of those developments and none of those drawings or developments have any trace of another competitors' intellectual property," said Dennis.

"It is extremely easy to track back the influence of any one individual into the development of our racing cars, because everything has a name against it."

McLaren are 25 points ahead of Ferrari in the constructors' standings with British rookie Lewis Hamilton leading double world champion Fernando Alonso by 14 points.