The world was forced to wait for over six hours after the Brazilian grand prix had come to an end before Kimi Raikkonen’s first drivers crown was confirmed even though the issues surrounding his possible loss of the title did not even involve him! The problem was that the two BMW’s and the two Williams’ were in doubt after having used fuel that was outside the regulations, being that it was too cold.

By too cold we are talking about 2 degrees, (Nakajima) to 4 degrees (Kubica), who were accused of being below a supposed limit of 27 degrees. However, according to our spies in Brazil, the FIA had to admit that their measurements were not correct. The ambient temperature taken by FOM is different to that from Bridgestone or from Meteo France. In Brazil the difference was four degrees.

Meteo France, who supplies all the teams with temperature data, had 33 degrees as the ambient temperature, while the FOM had it at 37 degrees. As the fuel may not be less than 10 degrees below the ambient temperature, we are talking about two different limits: 23 or 27 degrees.

On top of that the FIA measures the fuel temperature with a sensor on the bottom of the fuel rigs instead of the point where the fuel enters the tank of the car, as the rules require. On its way out of the rig and into the car the fuel gets warmer, as the hoses heat up to 40 degrees when they lay in the sun. Inside the tank the fuel can register up to 60 degrees at the end of a stint.

Finally, after examining all the information, the stewards came to the right decision and that was that a disqualification of the four cars on such weak grounds would have been unfair. However, since this the McLaren team has lodged an official appeal, but it is more than likely that it won’t amount to anything.