Tuesday October 19th, 1999

The McLaren team has issues an official statement, calling for the FIA to leave Ferrari's disqualification from the Malaysian Grand Prix intact. McLaren also plan to appear in front of the Court of Appeals this coming Friday, and make their stand against reversal of the ban known to the Court.

McLaren's statement, while contradicting to statements made by Mika Hakkinen and Ron Dennis, reads: "The World Championship is decided on the basis of the results of sixteen races. During the eight months over which the championship is contested, teams lose races that they might otherwise have won, for reasons such as mechanical failure, driver error, technical non-conformity and breach of the sporting code. These incidents can occur at any stage in the season and are statistically just as likely to occur at the end of a season as at the beginning.

"Logically, however, there is a higher media profile if the incident takes place at the end of the season. Whilst we understand the sympathy and requests for leniency that some people have expressed, the fact that the outcome of the Malaysian Grand Prix can decide this year's World Championship is irrelevant. The more important the outcome of a race, the more important it is that the rules are applied consistently and fairly in accordance with the procedures which have been strictly adhered to in the past.

"We sympathise with Ferrari, but this matter has to be put into a wider context. It is not the first, nor will it be the last time, that a team and driver suffer exclusion from a race by reason of an infringement of the technical regulations. For example in 1996 Johnny Herbert and the Sauber Team were excluded from the French Grand Prix when the front deflectors (also known as barge boards) were found to infringe the dimensional rules.

"We ourselves have suffered on a number of occasions including in 1997 at the Belgian Grand Prix when Mika Hakkinen and ourselves lost third place because of a fuel irregularity. The International Court of Appeal in its judgement on that case, confirmed that the rules state that the absence of a performance advantage was not a defence.

"The FIA has invited us to be present for the forthcoming Court of Appeal hearing on the 22nd October and we have notified them of our intention to attend."