BAR Accept FIA Punishment

After going on the attack against the FIA and questioning the Appeal Court's verdict in the immediate aftermath of their penalty, BAR issued a statement wholly accepting the judgement and admitting their view on the sport's minimum weight limit was wrong.

The statement said: "Having investigated the matter fully, including making extensive enquiries of other teams, BAR Honda now accept that Formula One cars must always weigh more than 600kg when completely empty of fuel and that this applies even if the car's fuel system is such that some of the fuel in the car is unusable.

"Before making these enquiries it was the team's honest belief that fuel which could not be used during the race did not have to be removed before the car was weighed."

Although BAR team boss Nick Fry made comments over the Spanish Grand Prix weekend that questioned the independence of the FIA Court of Appeal, which subsequently forced the FIA to launch an investigation into whether those statements had brought the sport into disrepute, the BAR statement also made it clear that the team now no longer have any doubts about the body.

"BAR Honda accept the decision of the FIA Court of Appeal as fair in the circumstances and recognise that the judges in this, as in other cases, are fully independent, being lawyers and professional judges of high standing who give their service on a voluntary basis," added the statement.

"BAR Honda want nothing more than to compete with other teams in the Formula One World Championship on an entirely fair and equal basis and look forward to rejoining the competition at the European Grand Prix."  

The statement is likely to have been issued in a bid to ensure that the fuel system issue can now be put behind the team and allow them to focus on a return to form at the European Grand Prix later this month.