After stewards ruled that McLaren were not to gain any points towards the constructors championship from the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren notified the stewards they would appeal the decision. The stewards came to the decision after deciding that McLaren had acted in a manner “considered to be prejudicial to the interests of the competition and to the interest of motor sport generally.â€
However, there is now confusion over whether McLaren will go ahead with the appeal or not. Some recent news reports have suggested that Norbert Haug, boss of Mercedes motorsport, has already ruled out the appeal going through. Ron Dennis has said that the team will reach a decision over the ruling when they got back to the factory.
“We truly have done nothing other than maintain the concept of withdrawing the appeal as an option,†Dennis explained. “We will discuss it internally. It s frustrating to go away from here without any constructor points but it was a very good damage limitation exercise. We lost eight points of our advantage.
“We will look at everything very, very calmly over the course of the next 24 hours and we will then decide whether to pursue the path of appeal.
“We have done some work and explained in our press release that the stewards were very correct in saying that we held Fernando and there were only four cars on the circuit. But the reality was that there were five cars who were going to rejoin the circuit and it s making sure that you are not behind those cars is the reason you adopt the process of holding the car.
“But clearly even as was apparent by the fact that Fernando only cross the start-finish line with less than a second to go and Lewis failed to do so it was clearly not part of our plan, nor consistent with the discussion that we had had in the previous 24 hours. Between now and the next Grand Prix, we will definitely try and put some calmness in the team and arrive in Turkey in a more tranquil environment than we experience this weekend.â€
