McLaren's appeal against the rejection of their protest over Micahel Schumacher's victory at Silverstone will be heard by the FIA's International Court of Appeals on July 27th, shortly after the Austrian Grand Prix. Along with Mclaren, the Council also asked the Race Stewards of Silverstone to appear at the hearing, apparently to explain a line of mistakes they had made from the time Schumacher made the pass under the yellow flag, to the contoversial end of that race.

McLaren's initial claim at the appeal is expected to be that the Ferrari team acknowledged Michael Schumacher's penalty, by signing the penalty form presented to them by the race steward, and therefore cannot claim the decision to be illegal due to it being handed too late to the team. However, it seems unlikely to affect the race result, as the stewards not only handed the penalty too late (over 25 minutes, the maximum time from the event) but also handed the wrong penalty - their decision was to deduct 10 seconds off Michael Schumacher's final race time, rather than bring him in for a stop\go penalty. In this case, the Ferrari team and Schumacher would not be in the blame, although Schumacher is likely to receive a suspended race ban nonetheless, as he did pass under a yellow flag.

Television shots that were posted on the world wide web during yesterday, show Schumacher lap Alex Wurz right where Rubens Barrichello's Stewart spun and came to halt at the track's side. Near the barrier a yellow flag is shown, though due to poor visual conditions it is unclear how well a driver could have seen that flag.

In the next few weeks most drivers are expected to announce their moves for next season, which means the Formula One pitlane is swarming with rumours and speculations. Yesterday, Jean Alesi's name surfed up as a potential move to the Prost team. Apparently, Prost wants to release Olivie Panis, but is obliged to retain a French driver by its engine supplier, Peugeot. Alain Prost, the team owner, is known to be a good friend of Alesi, who in turn has been said to wish to leave Sauber, because of bad relationship with its owners and co-driver, Johnny Herbert.

Another reccuring rumour states that Jacques Villeneuve has already commited to joining the BAR team next year, for a generous offer of 15 million dollars a year, plus shares in the team ownership. Villeneuve, according to those rumours, will also have a say about his racing partner and although he may want an ex-CART driver to team up with him, it is more likely that BAR will sign a European driver as Villeneuve's teammate. Amongst the names suggested in such a case, is Arrow's driver, the Fin Mika Salo who is belived to be a good friend of Villeneuve. Should Salo leave, and Panis depart from Prost, it is believed that Panis will join the Arrows team and team up with Pedro Diniz. Along with Panis the team may replace their home-bulit engine with a Mechachrome engine, which Tom Wallkinshaw, Arrow's owner, is now believed to be negotiating over.

Speculations remain hanging over Eddie Irvine's decision for next year - should he decide to stay at Ferrari or not, and should Ferrari want him to stay or not. Unclear is also the future of Heinz Harald Frentzen and, as of late, David Coulthard. Following his lash at his team McLaren after the British Grand Prix and Ron Dennis' insinuation that soon enough Coulthard will be asked to play merely a supporting role in Mika Hakkinen's fight for the World Championship title, it is now unclear whether Coulthard will actually stay at McLaren next year or would the team want to retain him for 1999 too.

All those unknowns are sure to be cleared in the next few weeks, as contracts will be signed and press releases will be submitted by all teams and drivers.

With Sauber being the last team to sign the Concorde agreement, Max Mosley, head of the FIA, is now focusing on expanding the Formula One World Championship to up to 20 races. It is already understood that next year's season will have 18 races, with South Africa, China and Malaysia most likely to host a Grand Prix. However, Mosley now demands the teams allow him to stretch the Championship season for up to 20 races. In the past, the agreement between the teams and the FIA was that all teams had to agree unanimously on holding more than 16 races, but now Mosely is urging the teams to change this rule so that only 70% of the teams would be needed to agree to increasing the race count per season.

Most Formula One teams resumed testing yesterday at the partly rainy Monza track, with McLaren's Mika Hakkinen setting the first day's fastes times.

Alexander Wurz of Benetton crashed his car heavily right at the start of the test session, as he spun at high speed entering the Ascari corner. His car was quite damaged, but he was unhurt. Eventually he set the 9th fastes time of the day.

The Ferrari team concentrated mainly on tyre tests, with Eddie Irvine setting the 5th fastest time. Ferrari also brought to Monza a new chassis with a wider wheel base, which Michael Schumacher will test on Thursday, as he joins the other drivers testing at Monza, after he took a short break following the British Grand Prix.

(For the full times, see the July testing section on the main Atlas F1 news page).