Williams withdraws Ferrari, RBR protest

Despite hours of deliberation by the Australian Grand Prix race stewards following Williams' complaints, and media and other officials being forced to remain at work in the paddock until the matter was resolved, the Grove-based outfit chose to call a halt to its complaints shortly before midnight.

Although the team has declined to comment on the situation, it is understood the protest related to the area of the car surrounding the front edge of the sidepods.

The Williams complaint came on the back of Ferrari and Red Bull Racing being two of the teams who protested against its own diffuser design earlier in the weekend.

Prior to the Williams protest being lodged, technical director Sam Michael said that he had no qualms with protests being lodged.

"Let's be 100 percent clear, if someone thinks our car is not legal, we have no problem with them going the stewards at any time throughout the race weekend or the championship and saying we think x on that car is illegal," he explained.

"We sit in front of the stewards and say this is our case, this is theirs and they either declare for us or against us. We fully support that process because they are effectively the policeman and you've got to have that. You can't ever not have that otherwise people can run riot.

"So we don't have any problem with what people have done this weekend. Those three teams now that they've appealed those decisions feel that they have a very strong pace otherwise they wouldn't have done that, because they've been through two processes already and they are continuing with that with the Court of Appeal. I wouldn't say that it frustrates us. We are accepting of that process and we will go through with it."

The decision to withdraw the appeal means that the results of qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix have now been made official - with the only changes from the qualifying times being the exclusion of the two Toyota cars for flexi wings.