Bernie Ecclestone Warns Against FIA Handing Title To Mclaren Driver Hamilton

Ferrari

Nov 14, 2007

Bernie Ecclestone rarely talks about retiring from running the sport he loves, but he joked yesterday that he would think about doing so if the FIA, motor sport’s governing body, contrived to take the World Championship away from Kimi Raikkonen and awarded it to Lewis Hamilton.

There is a more than theoretical possibility that the FIA’s Court of Appeal, which meets in London tomorrow, could reaward this year’s championship if it decides that the Williams and BMW Sauber cars should be retrospectively disqualified from the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix for using illegal “cool” fuel.

Bernie is getting old if he equates a non-timed practice issue with a potential championship-deciding race infringement. TimesOnline.co

It would be hard to find anyone in Formula 1 who seriously believes that the FIA International Court of Appeal will result in the World Championship result being overturned. There is a small possibility, depending on the decision of the court about penalties, that the two BMW Saubers and the two Williams-Toyotas could be thrown out of the race result in Brazil. Exclusion of the cars involved could move Lewis Hamilton up three places in the result. That would give him fourth place and five points rather than seventh place and two points. The additional three points would then move him ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the final World Championship standings.

The court that meets today in London (thanks to the transit strikes in Paris) could decide that there is no case for an appeal to be made because procedures are usually different. According to the FIA Statutes appeals against decisions by the stewards of a meeting can be lodged by “one of the parties concerned”. It is arguable whether McLaren was concerned in the specific issue. There is an argument that the team should perhaps have protested the race result and then appealed if that protest had been rejected by the FIA Stewards.  GrandPrix.com