BAR Hit by Stewards' Ruling

BAR suffered a further setback to their German Grand Prix preparations on Saturday when stewards outlawed a device that would have allowed quicker and smoother cornering.

The Honda-powered team's chances had already been dealt a blow with Briton Jenson Button relegated from third to 13th place on the starting grid for Sunday's race after his car required an engine change.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) said in a statement that stewards had told BAR, third in the Championship, not to use a software-controlled device found installed on the spare car.

But it reminded BAR of the right to appeal.

"We've established a position and there will be further discussions about it," said technical director Geoff Willis. "The ruling at the moment has potential for consequences elsewhere on the car systems.

"We are going through the process with the FIA so it's not something that we're going to spend much time talking about publicly."

Willis confirmed that the device had been run in practice in Friday but was removed after the FIA brought it to the attention of the stewards.

"The sport has quite complicated rules and every now and then you have to go into a little bit more detail about establishing exactly what is and isn't permissible," he added. "Obviously we believed it would have given us a performance advantage, otherwise we wouldn't have been using it.

"But I think we're pretty happy that the car's quick here regardless and we're not concerned about it today."