MARCH 4, 2005

Stoddart gets signatures but blocked by FIA stewards

Paul Stoddart has been told that his cars cannot race in Melbourne, despite the fact that he finally managed to convince all the other teams to agree to let him use 2004 cars. Stoddart got the signatures and then went to the stewards to be allowed to race but was told that he could not.

"They should include us in the race," said the boss of Minardi. "We would then go to the FIA Court of Appeal at a later date. I thought we put a compelling case to the stewards. It was all facts not fiction. I am not in any way disputing the decision I simply think they did not have time to consider an incredibly complex issue. I followed Max Mosley's advice on what to do but it seems that the stewards do not agree with Max. We had to take them through a very complex issue and explain that the Concorde Agreement is the governing document of F1 and overrides and has the power to amend the F1 technical regulations. They are saying that they only have the technical regulations and are not privy to Concorde. We have given them sight of Concorde but you cannot expect them to learn its complexities in five minutes and I sympathise with them on that. We are going to the judge to say: 'You cannot include us in an event which we did not participate in but you can exclude us later'. This is not going to effect the Melbourne Grand Prix. It is limited to the Stewards' decision. If we don't get the injunction we will attempt to modify the cars."