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McLaren escaped with a suspended three-race ban when the FIA World Motor Sport Council convened on April 29 in Paris to decide its punishment for lying to the Australian Grand Prix race stewards (Competition, April 20). Former team principal Ron Dennis's stepping away from the McLaren Group's F1 activities appears to have played a part in the decision. The judgment took into account that as part of McLaren's punishment for its part in the Ferrari industrial espionage scandal in 2007, McLaren was placed on two-year probation. The team appears to have avoided potential problems with some of its sponsors and with Daimler-Benz, a 40 percent shareholder. Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche had said that "an unreasonable punishment could result in his company reviewing its position as the team's engine supplier.
F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone is using the absence of a valid Concorde Agreement to withhold from the Brawn GP team a $26 million payment, earned by Honda Racing for finishing ninth in the 2008 constructors' championship. The former commercial contract, which expired at the end of 2007, stated that prize money earned by teams that quit F1 would be split among those remaining. ...