McLaren satisfied

McLaren's chairman Ron Dennis said yesterday that he was satisfied that the software on Mika Hakkinen's car was legal, after a technicality put the Finn's runaway victory in Sunday's Austrian grand prix in doubt.

But Hakkinen may have to wait until Thursday before he learns whether the 16th formula one win of his career will count or whether he will suffer the anguish of disqualification.

At post-race scrutineering, his McLaren was found to be missing one of the official FIA seals on its electronic control box. The programmes contained in such control boxes have a huge influence over the performance of the engine and the rules insist that once these programmes are approved and lodged with the governing body they must not be altered without permission.

There is no suggestion that there was anything improper about Hakkinen's car, but the fact that the seal was missing means that Alan Prudom, the electronics expert of formula one's governing body the FIA, will put the control box through a rigorous check before reporting his findings.

Dennis said: "We are satisfied that it (the software) complies with the regulations."

It would be extremely hard if Hakkinen were eventually penalised for a rule infringement which conferred absolutely no performance advantage to his car. However, rival teams point out that Michael Schumacher's Benetton and David Coulthard's Williams were disqualified from first and second places in the 1995 Brazilian grand prix when the Elf fuel samples taken from both cars, though conforming with the rules, were found not to match the sample lodged with the governing body before the race.

On that occasion Schumacher and Coulthard were allowed on appeal to keep their points in the drivers' world championship but Benetton and Williams were stripped of their constructors' points. The rules were subsequently amended and this rule can now be applied only in "exceptional circumstances".

If Hakkinen were to be disqualified from the Austrian race it would promote his McLaren team-mate Coulthard to first place, moving the Scot to within two points of the world championship leader Schumacher, who crashed out on Sunday.

The consensus in the paddock at Spielberg on Sunday evening was that the irregularity over the seal was trifling in the extreme and Hakkinen's win would soon be confirmed. Yet nothing can be guaranteed in the unpredictable world of formula one.