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McLaren insist not seeking title in court

The McLaren team insisted they are not seeking to win the drivers' championship in the courtroom following the appeal hearing in London on Thursday

If McLaren's appeal is successful, it could mean Lewis Hamilton would gain enough points to be crowned champion, nearly a month after Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen celebrated the title at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Ferrari's lawyer Nigel Tozzi was highly critical of McLaren during the hearing, saying comments from the team's F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh that they are only seeking clarification of the rules were of "shameless hypocrites devoid of any integrity".

McLaren's lawyer Ian Mill had earlier called for BMW's and Williams' drivers to be disqualified from the Brazilian race, thus promoting Hamilton to fourth, which would give him enough points to take the title.

"The principle is clear," said Mill. "If there was a breach, it was performance-enhancing. The sanction, I'm afraid, has to be disqualification."

Whitmarsh, however, said after the hearing that their argument was purely based on precedents of disqualifications for infringements to the technical regulations in the past 20 years.

He added that getting their rivals disqualified was not their ultimate goal.

"At today's hearing all parties had the opportunity to present evidence and make arguments based on their respective perception of the facts," Whitmarsh said. "It now lies with the FIA International Court of Appeal to deliberate and issue a decision.

"As I made clear prior to the appeal, the team was seeking to clarify the regulatory uncertainty that has arisen from a decision of the FIA Stewards at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix and not to win the Driver's World Championship.

"Our lawyer's argument that an appropriate penalty would be a disqualification of the cars is based on the fact that this is ordinarily what has occurred during the last 20 years in Formula One when there was a breach of a technical regulation during a race.

"Consequently whilst this was the only appropriate argument from a legal point of view, it's not our ultimate goal in respect of today's hearing."

A decision by the four judges will be announced on Friday.

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