/ 22 September 2007

No McLaren appeal against $100m spy fine

Formula One team McLaren-Mercedes will not appeal against the $100-million fine and exclusion from the 2007 constructors’ championship over the Ferrari spying charges, Mercedes said on Friday.

McLaren had until 3pm GMT on Friday to lodge an appeal over the decision by the FIA, world motorsport’s governing body.

”We accept things as they are. All our attention is now exclusively focused on the sport and the last three races of the season,” said Norbert Haug, Mercedes’s vice-president of sporting activities. ”We want our two drivers to be in the first two positions of the drivers’ championship at the finish of the last grand prix of the season in Brazil.”

McLaren’s decision not to appeal the decision means Ferrari have won the 2007 Formula One constructors’ championship over BMW Sauber, which can’t make up the 71-point difference with the last three grands prix of the season in Japan, China and Brazil.

”Scuderia Ferrari have won the world constructors’ championship 2007, its 14th title in this competition and seventh over the past nine years,” Ferrari said in a statement.

On September 13, the FIA fined McLaren $100-million and threw the British team out of the 2007 constructors’ championship for gaining a competitive advantage from secret information leaked to them by ex-Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney.

The two McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, in first and second respectively in the drivers’ championship, were allowed to continue to compete. — Sapa-AFP