FIA to rule on Prodrive entry

The FIA announced on Friday morning that a hearing had been called for October 24 to hear about Prodrive's planned entry for 2008.

A statement said: "Further to the receipt of a letter from the Williams F1 team regarding the legality of the entry of Prodrive F1 in the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship, the President of the FIA has made a referral to the FIA's International Court of Appeal (ICA) under Article 1 of the ICA Rules of Procedure."

With teams still having failed to agree on a new Concorde Agreement for next year, which makes it likely that the current version will be rolled over for another season, there is now uncertainty about the legality of customer cars - which were due to have been allowed in the new version.

It is understood that Williams wrote to Prodrive to propose some legal arguments about the matter, and it is this correspondence that has resulted in FIA president Max Mosley referring the matter to the Court of Appeal.

Neither Williams nor Prodrive would comment on the matter.

The hearing is due to take place in London, and a decision will be announced on the following afternoon.