Finally, and most likely to rumble on, Spyker confirmed that it had launched arbitration proceedings against
Super Aguri F1 and
Scuderia Toro Rosso after accusing them of running 'customer cars' which contravene the current Concorde Agreement. Although the team refused to issue a statement because of the legal nature of its protest, it did confirm that the matter now rested with the Chamber of Commerce in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Not that Aguri or Toro Rosso appeared to concerned, however. The Japanese team was still floating on air after its own stunning Melbourne weekend, and
STR's Gerhard Berger claiming that the move by Spyker was more commercially driven than anything else, with the Silverstone-based team concerned that it would finish eleventh overall this season, and therefore missing out on a greater share of the reward pot.
NEWS FROM THE TEAMS:
McLaren – Fernando Alonso (#1), Lewis Hamilton (#2):
After surviving a Melbourne weekend when most of the world's media focused on world champion Fernando Alonso and hot property
Lewis Hamilton, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes arrives at Sepang leading the constructors’ championship after its drivers landed a double podium finish at the season opener.
Although Alonso spent much of the late off-season claiming that his car would not be match for
Ferrari, it proved to be good enough to beat everything else, even though he required a little bit of strategy to see off his upstart team-mate, who led him for two-thirds of the race. The world champion thus claimed second spot to lie just two points behind arch rival
Kimi Raikkonen heading to Malaysia.
