Minardi won't appeal British GP results

At the French Grand Prix, the Minardi boss announced that, in his opinion, traction control and various drivers aids were banned as from Silverstone. He said that his team would run without them and then make a decision whether to protest any team that used them.

Stoddart was using the threat to try and force through the 'fighting fund', along with assurances for cheaper customer engines. The F1 team principals met at the French race to discuss the issues, and Stoddart has now decided to withdraw his threat to protest.

"That's all gone," he told Reuters. "What we have effectively done is adopted the rules for the rest of the year and they will stay that way for 2004 as well, with the exception that you will lose, as previously arranged, launch control and multi-gear shifts.

"Silverstone is 100 percent guaranteed safe. Clearly with a championship as close as this one is, we don't want any controversy, we want each race to take it's own course and see the year out."

Asked whether Minardi had received the fighting fund money it had been pushing for, Stoddart said: "We've had some contribution and, as everything always is, it's a compromise. We've effectively agreed to agree for the remainder of 2003. I think we can safely say that for the rest of the year the fighting will all be done on the track, which is where it should be."