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F1: Court of Appeal Underway
Written by: RACER Staff   http://www.racer.com
11/14/2007 - 07:00 PM
London, UK
 
The appeal hearing could decide the outcome of the World Championship a month after the last race. (LAT/FIA Image) ยป More Photos

An FIA International Court of Appeal hearing is underway that will either confirm Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen as 2007 Formula 1 World Champion or hand the title to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton. An FIA spokeswoman said a judgment was likely to be made public on Friday.

The four judges met in London with representatives of the two teams, as well as BMW Sauber and Williams, to hear an appeal by McLaren against a stewards' decision at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix last month. Raikkonen won the drivers' title by a single point over Hamilton, but fuel samples from the three cars that finished ahead of the McLaren rookie in that race were found to have used fuel that was cooler than the regulations allow. McLaren appealed after the race stewards decided not to impose sanctions on the BMW Sauber and Williams cars, due to what they said were "considerable discrepancies" in the data.

If the three cars concerned are disqualified and Hamilton's McLaren is promoted from seventh to fourth, the 22-year-old Briton would leapfrog Finn Raikkonen in the final standings to become the youngest champion.

The stewards would not be required to move Hamilton up the race order, and McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh claimed Wednesday that the team is not pressing the case merely to make Hamilton champion. However, in his opening statement to the appeal panel, McLaren lawyer Ian Mill argued that the BMW Sauber and Williams
cars should be disqualified and Hamilton moved up the finishing order, urging the judges not to be influenced by the fact that the title could be at stake.

"The principle is clear," said Mill. "If there was a breach, it was performance-enhancing. The sanction, I'm afraid, has to be disqualification. I ask you to address this as though it was any team at any stage of the season.

"Whenever in the past there has been a disqualification, there has been a re-classification... All we ask you to do is what normally happens."



What will its massive penalty mean to the McLaren team next year? Find out in our December issue, on sale now.


Ferrari's lawyer, Nigel Tozzi, countered, "It would be highly damaging for the sport if the title were to won this way, with the fans probably feeling it was more about grubby maneuvering by the lawyers than by skill behind the wheel.

"As McLaren have always said, the championship should be decided on the racetrack and not in the courtroom," Tozzi added.

The four independent judges, meeting at London law firm Sidley Austin, were named as John Cassidy (U.S.), Vassilis Koussis (Greece), Jose Macedo e Cunha (Portugal) and Jan Stovicek (Czech Republic).