Friday October 22nd, 1999

The FIA's Court of Appeal adjoined today, at the Automobile Club de France in Paris, for nearly four hours to listen to claims made by various sides regarding Ferrari's disqualification from the Malaysian Grand Prix, where the Italian team finished first and second, only to be later disqualified due to a missing 10mm lip on their deflectors.

The Court of Appeal, consisting of five independent judges, will make their verdict known tomorrow at 11:00 am local time, in a press conference held by the FIA's president, Max Mosley. The judges hearing the case were chairman Jose Macedo e Cunha of Portugal, Austrian Gerhard Nurscher, Philippe Roberti de Winghe of Belgium, Greek Vassilis Koussis and Jan Van Rosmalen of the Netherlands.

On behalf of Ferrari appeared team chief, Jean Todt, technical director, Ross Brawn as well as other team personnel. Unexpectedly, Eddie Irvine flew from the far east to also attend the hearing this morning. As he left the hearing, he refused to answer question and sufficed in saying, "I don't know whether it went well or badly. Let's just wait until Saturday morning."

Also present were representatives of McLaren and Stewart - both teams stand to gain from Ferrari's disqualification. Among them were McLaren director, Martin Whitmarsh, and Paul Stewart, chief operating officer of the Stewart-Ford team, who described the hearing as "fair and thorough." He stressed again that his team's standpoint, as was presented to the Court, was that "The rules must be respected."