PARIS, 6 May 2005 — Jenson Button’s BAR Honda team were yesterday banned from competing in the next two Grand Prix after being found guilty of “highly regrettable negligence” at last month’s race in San Marino.
The verdict, which fell way short of the season-long ban called for by motor racing’s governing body the International Automobile Federation (FIA), was handed down by the FIA’s International Court of Appeal.
The court ruled that the car Button drove to finish third at Imola was underweight.
In addition to being excluded from Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix and Monaco on May 22 the British-based BAR outfit have retrospectively been thrown out of the San Marino race and stripped of the points won there — their first of the season. They also have a six month ban suspended for one year hanging over them and ordered to pay all the costs of the case.
BAR vigorously deny they used an illegal hidden second fuel tank to gain an advantage on their grid rivals but FIA president Max Mosley said he felt they had been let off the hook by the four-judge panel at the FIA’s Paris headquarters.
“The facts in this case are very clear,” Mosley said. “The team was asked to pump the fuel out of their car. They left 15 liters in the tank and told us it was empty.
“Under the circumstances, we feel they have been treated rather leniently.”
But in a seven-page statement the FIA’s four-man appeal panel said that it was not possible on the evidence they had heard to prove that BAR had deliberately cheated.
“Their actions...show at the least a highly regrettable negligence and lack of transparency,” the statement said.
Imola track scrutineers initially found Button’s BAR had conformed with the legal minimum weight limit when they inspected it.
When the car was weighed immediately after the race it was found to be above the weight limit but it was below the limit when the fuel tank was drained.
FIA scrutineers at the track accepted BAR’s explanation but the FIA, suspecting the car was loaded with petrol as ballast, put the case before the its International Court of Appeal.
And in its ruling the FIA’s tribunal declared: “The inspection revealed that on top of the 160 grams of fuel that was emptied, 8.92kg of fuel still remained in a special compartment within the fuel tank and a further 2.46kg remained in the bottom of the fuel tank.
“These quantities remained in the vehicle after the BAR Honda team had confirmed “That’s it” when asked if the draining process was completed.”
The ruling means that BAR will restart the season in Germany on May 29 without a point.
Button’s first podium finish of 205 now goes to McLaren driver Alexander Wurz.
The fifth-place gained by Button’s Japanese teammate Takuma Sato has also been cancelled, allowing Canadian Jacques Villeneuve to claim fourth for Sauber, with Italian Jarno Trulli moving up to fifth for Toyota.
Williams duo Nick Heidfeld, of Germany, and Mark Webber, of Australia, are now credited with sixth and seventh while Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi is now credited with scoring a point for eighth place on his debut with Red Bull Racing.
