The disputed truthfulness and accuracy of an email sent by the FIA's legal department last Friday to everyone involved in McLaren's appeal hearing in Paris has once again raised fresh questions about the organisation's credibility and integrity.
The correspondence claimed that Tony Scott Andrews, a man held in high regard in F1 circles, admitted to making "an inadvertent error" while he was chief steward at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix.
Scott Andrews, it was claimed, conceded that he wrongly imposed a time penalty on Italian driver Tonio Liuzzi for overtaking Adrian Sutil under yellow flags and Toro Rosso were allowed to appeal. The FIA email added that Scott Andrews had confirmed this in a phone conversation with F1 Race Director Charlie Whiting.
Were this to have been the case then the FIA would have been in a stronger position to rule the McLaren appeal against the stop-and-go penalty Lewis Hamilton suffered in Belgium as inadmissible. According to McLaren, the fact that Toro Rosso were granted the right to appeal means a precedent has been set that enables them to dispute the stewards' judgement in Spa.
"Having checked with the permanent chief of stewards who signed the Decision in Japan, we wish to inform you that there is an error on the face of the Decision document," the FIA told McLaren. The precedent would not hold, the mail declared, because Liuzzi's punishment was meted out under a different article of the rules.
It is a telling insight into McLaren's faith in the integrity of the governing body that, having received the email on Friday, they then sent a delegation of team officials to travel to Brands-Hatch on Sunday, where Scott Andrews was overseeing a race event, to check the truthfulness of the FIA's claim. His reaction to being informed of the FIA email is reported to have been one of 'outrage'.
Scott Andrews told the court in Paris: "I have seen the email and I'm extremely surprised by its content. In short, it is grossly inaccurate and misleading."
He continued by stating that Whiting had never asked him if he had made an error in Japan and added: "Had he done so, the answer would have been 'no'."
In his closing speech, McLaren's lawyer Mark Phillips QC called the email an "unfortunate exchange" and added: "I ask you to reflect on that when you come to consider the way in which certain members of the FIA conducted themselves. I won't say any more than that."
