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BAR gets FIA warning
The FIA is examining BAR's comments to see if they can be charged for disreputing the sport.
Motorsport's world governing body, the FIA, on Monday warned the BAR-Honda Formula One team to accept their two-race ban or face further punishment.
BAR-Honda were given the suspension, which forced them out of the Spanish and Monaco Grand Prix races, after Jenson Button's car was found to be underweight following the San Marino Grand Prix.
The team were fiercely critical of their punishment, first promising to fight the decision of the FIA's International Court of Appeal before withdrawing that threat and criticising the severity of the penalty.
The FIA said Monday that they are examining BAR's comments to see if they can be charged with bringing the sport into disrepute.
The FIA statement said: "No manufacturer, however large, will be allowed a concealed or unfair advantage. Those unable or unwilling to accept this have no place in Formula One.
"They should also understand that any sport is likely to impose further sanctions on a competitor which attacks the integrity of the governing body when caught breaking the rules.
"Statements attributed to the management of BAR-Honda are currently under investigation in the light of the team's obligation to do nothing 'prejudicial to the image and dignity of Formula One racing' or 'prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally'.
"The manufacturers concerned came into Formula One for their own reasons. They were not invited - they invited themselves. Each of them accepted the rules and structures of the sport as they had done on many previous occasions."
The FIA also dismissed criticism of their appeals court, which five of the Formula One engine manufacturers want replaced by the independent Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
There was widespread belief in the paddock that BAR were not treated unduly harshly and concerns about whether the FIA's appeal court is truly independent of the govening body.
DaimlerChrysler, Renault, BMW, Toyota and Honda, which owns 45 percent of BAR, called for an "independent appeals process administered by an internationally recognised body".
