F1 - Team McLaren stripped of Championship Points

This amount includes prize and television money earned from the constructors' championship as of today.

Drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso stay in the points race.

Team McLaren must also prove that "intellectual property" belonging to Ferrari is absolutely absent in their F1 racecars next year

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you view it, this almost certainly makes Scuderia Ferrari the winner of the constructor's championships by default. They are currently 57 points ahead of Team BMW Sauber.

"Having been at the hearing I do not accept that we deserve to be penalised or our reputation damaged in this way", says a rather defiant McLaren boss, Ron Dennis.

FIA president Max Mosley was asked if justice had been done, to which he gave a resounding "Yes".

Quoting a press release from Ferrari, "In light of new evidence, facts and behaviour of an extremely serious nature and grossly prejudicial to the interest of the sport have been further demonstrated. Ferrari is satisfied that the truth has now emerged."

The World Motor Sport Council will publish further information behind the rather shocking, and untimely verdict on Friday.

Ron Dennis informs that he would hold his horses until then before deciding whether to appeal.

"We believe we have grounds for appeal but of course we are going to wait for the findings of the FIA which are going to be published," Dennis elaborates.

"The most important thing is that we go motor racing this weekend, the rest of the season and next season."

Dennis was "clearly relieved" that they could continue racing. He was understandably upset what he felt was a serious blow to the reputation of the team.

"Having been at the hearing I do not accept that we deserve to be penalised or our reputation damaged in this way," he continued.

"Today's evidence given to the FIA by our drivers, engineers and staff clearly demonstrated we did not use any leaked information to gain a competitive advantage.

"The WMSC received statements from Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa stating categorically no Ferrari information had been used by McLaren, and that no confidential data had been passed to the team.

"The entire engineering team in excess of 140 people provided statements to the FIA affirming they had never received or used the Ferrari information.

"We have never denied that the information from Ferrari was in the personal possession of one of our employees at his home."

"The issue is: was this information used by McLaren? This is not the case and has not been proven."

The "Spygate" case was first heard on the 26th of July, where McLaren got off without punishment, but only until the current, 2nd hearing that was scrambled into place after new evidence was found.

"All I can say, without being in full command of all of the information, is that the offence must be considerably larger than has been projected either by the governing body of the sport or within the media," said three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart in a discussion with BBC Radio 5live.

"This isn't murder that has been carried out, this is something that has happened before and there wasn't even a fine or disciplinary action taken by the same governing body.

"There is something very strange going on, there is no doubt about that.

"From what information we have been given so far, this does not constitute a penalty of this scale with regards to the crime that has been carried out.

"And even if they were found guilty of that particular crime, it doesn't justify this kind of penalty."

Credits: nikolaiski