FIA accuse BAR of fraudulent conduct

By Phil Huff
May 4 2005

The FIA have come out fighting in the case against BAR Honda, declaring that the team intentionally deceived the scrutineers and are guilty of fraudulent conduct.

"The team set out deliberately to gain an illegitimate and unfair advantage over other teams," said the FIA in court. By storing additional fuel in the car, the team acted "prejudicial to the interests of the competition and to the interests of motor sports generally."

During scrutineering following the San Marino Grand Prix, the team were asked to drain the car of fuel. Asked if the car was fully drained, a team member said "yes". Following this, the second tank and remaining fuel was discovered.

"In designing a fuel system calculated to deceive the scrutineers into thinking the car had been drained of fuel when in fact it had not, the team was guilty of fraudulent conduct."

BAR Honda robustly defended themselves, with Geoffrey Willis commenting that "at no time would I allow anybody in the team to do anything illegal, we have a common culture of integrity and fairness."