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BAR F-1 Team Gets Two-Race Ban for Using Lighter Car (Update2)
May 5 (Bloomberg) -- The BAR-Honda Formula One team was today banned from the next two races and stripped of its points at the San Marino Grand Prix after a panel ruled that driver Jenson Button's car was too light at the April 24 race.
A four-man panel from the sport's ruling body, Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, found last year's second-ranked team relied on gasoline stored in a secondary fuel tank to make the car heavier than the mandatory minimum 600 kilograms (1,323 pounds) at a post-race inspection, according to the panel's written judgment released by the FIA.
The panel couldn't establish whether the team deliberately retained gasoline in the tank when inspectors asked for the car to be drained, the judgment added. The FIA had asked the panel to impose a ban of a year and a fine of as much as 1 million euros ($1.3 million) if the team was found guilty of deliberately cheating.
BAR-Honda's ``actions at the time of the emptying procedure of the vehicle. . .show at the least a highly regrettable negligence and lack of transparency,'' said the written judgment from the panel, which met in Paris yesterday.
The ban damages Button's championship bid and is a setback for British American Tobacco Plc and Honda Motor Co., who invest in the team to advertise their brands. BAT, the No. 2 cigarette maker, spent $34 million on the team in 2003, according to BAR-Honda's latest financial filing in London. Honda in November raised its stake in the team to 45 percent and may buy BAT's 55 percent share.
Second Last Year
BAR-Honda, which misses races at Barcelona and Monaco and loses its first 10 championship points of the season under the ruling, can challenge the sanction in court. The team had already arrived in Barcelona for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, with practice sessions scheduled for tomorrow.
``BAR-Honda is appalled at the decision,'' Nick Fry, the team's chief executive, said in a statement. ``At no time did BAR- Honda run underweight at the San Marino Grand Prix. This penalty is wholly and grossly disproportionate.''
The Brackley, England-based team has said it submitted data to inspectors after the race that prove the car weighed more than 600 kilograms throughout the race. Inspectors cleared Button's car six hours after the event before FIA officials challenged their decision the next day.
In an phone interview from the Barcelona track today, Fry said the team was ``looking into'' whether to appeal the punishment in a law court.
No points
It means Button and Takuma Sato, third and fifth at San Marino, will be without a championship point when they resume racing at the May 29 European Grand Prix at Germany's Nurburgring, the seventh of 19 races. Renault's Fernando Alonso leads the drivers' standings with 36 points and his team heads the constructors' table with 46.
Button, third in last season's standings, had 32 points after six events last season.
Last August, he announced he would quit BAR-Honda to sign a two- year contract at BMW-Williams, which at the time he said ``provides the best platform for my future ambitions to be a world champion.'' Two months later the sport's contract recognition board decided he had a binding agreement, preventing him from joining BMW-Williams, which has 18 points this campaign.
BAR-Honda's second place behind Ferrari in the 2004 constructors' championship was its best finish in five years of competing in Formula One.