Court of Appeal hearing starts in London

The four judges met in London with representatives of the two teams, as well as BMW Sauber and Williams, to hear an appeal by McLaren against a stewards' decision at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix last month.

An International Automobile Federation (FIA) spokeswoman said a judgment was likely to come on Friday.

Raikkonen won the drivers' title from 22-year-old rookie Hamilton by a single point but fuel samples from the three cars that finished ahead of Hamilton in that race were found to have used fuel that was cooler than the regulations allow.

McLaren appealed after the race stewards decided not to impose sanctions on the BMW Sauber and Williams cars due to what they said were "considerable discrepancies" in the data.

If the three drivers are disqualified and McLaren's Hamilton is promoted from seventh to fourth, the 22-year-old rookie would leapfrog Finn Raikkonen in the final standings to become the youngest champion.

However, the stewards do not have to move Hamilton up the race order and the Briton has said he wanted to win the title on the track and not in a courtroom.

The four independent judges, meeting at London law firm Sidley Austin, were named as John Cassidy (U.S.), Vassilis Koussis (Greece), Jose Macedo e Cunha (Portugal) and Jan Stovicek (Czech Republic).