Sunday March 26th, 2000

The McLaren-Mercedes raced by British driver David Coulthard has been disqualified from the results of the Brazilian Grand Prix, due to an apparent infringement of the Technical Regulation defining the location of its front wing.

During the mandatory post-race technical inspection, Coulthard's McLaren had been one of five cars among the top six finishers judged to be in contravention of the rule governing wear to the wooden underbody 'plank', which is used to regulate the ride-height of the Formula One racecars. The excessive wear was believed to have been caused by the cars bottoming on the bumpy main straight on the Interlagos circuit.

After a long delay, the other five cars - Michael Schumacher's winning Ferrari, Giancarlo Fisichella's Benetton, the Jordans of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jarno Trulli, and Ralf Schumacher's Williams - were confirmed as official finishers, but the results indicated that Coulthard's McLaren was still under investigation. At 19:25 local time The final and official results were declared, stating David Coulthard (Car number 2) was disqualified, because the front wing of his car was mounted too high.

Under the Technical Regulations, in order to ensure that they are raced with a specific ride height, all the Formula One cars must have wooden 'planks' fitted to their underbodies. There is a limit to the wear that is allowed on these planks.

Several cars failed post-race inspection in this regard. In fact, the only car (among the top six finishers presented for post-race scrutineering) that complied fully with the plank wear regulation was Giancarlo Fisichella's Benetton, which had crossed the line in third position. It is ironic that it was this car which had had the least underbody wear rate, because Fisichella had driven more laps than any other driver during the race with a heavy fuel load.

The problem is likely to have been caused by the bumpy nature of the main straight at Interlagos. However, it presented the Stewards with a difficult decision because, if this had indeed been the cause, it had not affected the post-race legality of all the finishers.

In that time, each team's representative was individually presented with the evidence. All teams claimed the excess wear was caused by the poorly repaved circuit, and the stewards - faced with the possibility of disqualifying almost all participants - decided to accept the teams' explanations. However, the McLaren of David Coulthard was not only found with wear exceeding the tolerance allowed, but rather its front wing endplates were 7mm under the legal size (2mm over the 5mm tolerance allowed by the regulations). The team maintains those were rotated into incompliance with the regulations by the constant bottoming against the track and curbs.

Under the regulations, the West McLaren Mercedes team had one hour in which to lodge a formal appeal against the decision. When it duly did so, it also issued the following statement:

'Following the post-race scrutineering at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Stewards of the meeting informed the West McLaren Mercedes team that David Coulthard's second-placed car was not in compliance of Art 3.7 (which relates to the front wing endplate height) by a margin of 2mm over the allowed tolerance at their rear edges. The team identified structural damage to both the underbody and chassis, combined with the fact that the front wing endplates had rotated about their axis. This cumulative effect was caused by the heavy amount of bottoming and vibration induced by the nature of the Sao Paulo circuit. The team therefore has appealed the decision of the Stewards who did not accept these mitigating circumstances.'

Until the appeal is heard by the FIA, the decision promotes Fisichella to second place, Frentzen to third, Trulli to fourth and Ralf Schumacher to fifth. Sixth position is occupied by Ralf Schumacher's BMW WilliamsF1 team mate, Jenson Button, in only his second Grand Prix.