Schumacher relies on blind faith in Paris court

FORMULA ONE/NewsRalf Schumacher will today learn whether his trip to Hungary this weekend will be made in pursuit of championship advancement or merely as another staging post in another season on the brink.

Williams lawyers yesterday attempted to convince an FIA court of appeal in Paris that Schumacher should be absolved of blame for a start-line crash at the German Grand Prix on August 3rd and have a 10-place grid penalty for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix lifted.

Central to Williams' case was the argument that just prior to the accident, the other cars involved - the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello and the McLaren of Kimi Raikkonen - were in Schumacher's blind spot.

However, in response, FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting insisted that at the start of a race drivers needed to take extra care to avoid collision and that Williams' claim of a restricted field of vision was a "tenuous argument", saying that drivers have "lateral vision other than the mirrors" and that it was wrong for a driver to "assume that he can take the line he wants to take".

Williams also argued that the decision to demote Schumacher 10 places on this weekend's Hungaroring grid had been taken too quickly by race officials and without the presence of Williams team manager Dicki Stanford.

Whiting again rebutted this, saying that a full 90 had elapsed after the race before the decision was made.

Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen were also invited to give evidence and Barrichello told the court: "I did not crash into Ralf Schumacher, he crashed into me."

Schumacher insisted yesterday that he was not to blame for the incident. "There is no one to blame for this crash. It was a completely normal racing accident. It could have happened to anyone in the race," he told the court.

The odds may be further stacked against Schumacher. It is believed that in his report to the court, Whiting, a senior FIA official, recommended that should the court deny Williams' appeal, it should "lay down some guidelines concerning driver's responsibilities under these circumstances for use in the future" adding that "it is sometimes difficult for the race director and stewards to decide at what point careless driving becomes a breach of the regulations".

Meanwhile, Jordan have denied that they have had any contact with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich after it was revealed yesterday that Russian oil billionaire may be considering investing in Formula One.

Abramovich attended last month's European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring as a guest of Bernie Ecclestone and his willingness to get involved in the sport was brought to light by England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson yesterday.

"It was a big surprise to me when he bought Chelsea," said Eriksson. "What I knew was that he was going into football and maybe Formula One."

Jordan business development director Ian Phillips, however, denied that the cash-strapped team has had any contact with the Chelsea owner.

"We haven't had any contact with him," said Phillips, "but there would be interest in potential investment from somebody like that."

Abramovich visited the Minardi pit at the Nurburgring but team spokesman Graham Jones also denied there are any plans for Abramovich to invest in the Anglo-Italian team.