McLaren & Lewis Hamilton Lose the Appeal against the Belgian Row

McLaren's appeal against Lewis Hamilton's 25-second penalty at the Belgian Grand Prix has been rejected.

Hamilton strongly pressed his case at Monday's appeal to the FIA in Paris as he aimed to overturn his punishment for cutting a chicane at Spa.

The 23-year-old was demoted into third, with Felipe Massa handed the victory.

The five judges ruled that the appeal was inadmissible and so Hamilton's four-point deduction stands, leaving him one point clear in the title race.

If successful, Hamilton would have seen his lead increase over Ferrari's Massa to seven points.

However, has the appeal been heard it is possible the penalty against Hamilton could have increased.

"Article 152 of the International Sporting Code states that drive-through penalties are 'not susceptible to appeal'," the FIA said in a statement.

"Having heard the explanations of the parties, the court has concluded that the appeal is inadmissible."

And after Tuesday's verdict, Hamilton said: "People will probably expect me to be depressed about today's result, but that isn't me.

"All I want to do now is put this matter behind me and get on with what we drivers do best: racing each other.

"We're racers, we're naturally competitive and we love to overtake. Overtaking is difficult, and it feels great when you manage to pull off a great passing manoeuvre.

"If it pleases the spectators and TV viewers, it's better still. So I'm disappointed, yes, but not depressed."

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren's chief operating officer, added: "We are naturally disappointed with today's verdict, and to have received no ruling on the substance of our appeal.

"No-one wants to win Grands Prix in court; but we felt that Lewis had won the Belgian Grand Prix, on track, in an exciting and impressive manner.

"Our legal team and witnesses calmly explained this, as well as our belief that the appeal should be admissible, to the FIA International Court of Appeal.

"It nonetheless decided that our appeal was inadmissible. We will now concentrate on the remaining four races of the 2008 Formula 1 season."

The appeal court judges were faced with two decisions.

They first had to consider whether McLaren's appeal was admissible, as Formula One rules do not allow teams to appeal against drive-through penalties.

The penalty given to Hamilton was technically a drive-through penalty.

However, as it was issued retrospectively McLaren barrister Mark Philips QC had argued that no actual drive-through took place, so the appeal should be considered.

Secondly, the judges had to decide if Hamilton sufficiently surrendered the advantage he had gained when cutting the chicane.

The Englishman was battling with Massa's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen at the Spa circuit when he cut the Bus Stop chicane, resulting in him overtaking the Finnish driver.

Despite allowing Raikkonen to immediately reclaim the lead, Hamilton then overtook the Ferrari driver at the next corner to go back in front.

As video footage of the incident was shown, Hamilton told the court he was trying to avoid crashing into Raikkonen.

"We had a great battle and there was no need to take stupid risks, so I had to cut the chicane," he said.

"I've since studied the footage about 10 times and I can remember it vividly like it was yesterday.

"I believe I then gave the advantage back. I honestly, hand on heart, feel I did so."

Whitmarsh told reporters he believed the judges were "confident of our facts" following the hearing.

"Based on the evidence we saw at the time, and from subsequent analysis, we believe any advantage was ceded," he added.

"Therefore it's even more reason to get those points back."

Hamilton has since left France for Singapore ahead of Sunday's first ever night race.
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David Coulthard's Take On Lewis/Kimi Incident and the belgian Row-

David Coulthard has rubbished suggestions that Formula One risks being damaged by the Belgian Grand Prix controversy - and instead says it will move on quickly from the events of last week.

While the debate over Lewis Hamilton's 25-second penalty at Spa raged on in the paddock at Monza on Thursday, Coulthard said that he would seek clarification about the rules regarding chicane cutting in Friday's driving briefing before expecting the focus to revert to racing.

When asked whether he felt F1 risked losing fans over the matter, Coulthard said: "You can start micro-analysing all this, saying it is bad for the kids and so on. If you want to look at all these things, then the answer to your question can always be yes.

"But, you can do two things in life – you can dwell on the past or you can try and get clarification on things and move forward. That is the way I live my life.

"In the drivers' briefing tomorrow we will try and get clarification about the conditions we are racing under and we will move forward. And when some fans go, some fans come. That is the natural evolution of life."

Regarding the incident itself, Coulthard said that although Hamilton did give the lead back to Raikkonen, there was obviously a belief by the stewards that the McLaren driver gained a further advantage.

And he said that, whatever the varied opinions are of the matter, it was important the sport respected decisions made by the stewards.

"The rules as we understand them as drivers if that if you gain advantage then you should give that position back. So that means if you overtake under yellow you should give that position back; if you miss a corner and gain a position you should give it back.

"In the simplest way as we see it, he fulfilled that criteria. The area that obviously the stewards have applied a penalty for is, did he gain an advantage by missing the corner? Did that allow him to be in the slipstream of Raikkonen where he would not have been had he actually taken the corner normally?

"It is a very difficult one for us to know, at the end of the day in any sport and in any walk of life, you are controlled by certain rules and regulations and you will not always appreciate them, or agree with them, but as long as they are applied consistently then that is the world in which we live.

"Whether you like it, whether I like it, whether Lewis likes it, whether thousands of fans like it, they are the stewards, they are the police of our sport, and they have to be consistent in their behaviour."

He added: "At the end of the day this is a sport. There are a set of rules and regulations, and the race track is defined by the white lines. In Monaco you don't cut corners, you hit barriers.

"You can argue it was not Monaco, but the driver would have respected the corner if there was a barrier there. Lewis knew there was no barrier so he cut the corner.

"He did not need to go across there particularly, he did because he tried to go side-by-side with Raikkonen and Kimi squashed him in that position. From a driving point of view you have to look at the white lines as barriers

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