Date set for Williams appeal

A date has been set for 19th August for Williams' appeal against the penalty given to Ralf Schumacher for the first corner incident at the German Grand Prix. Schumacher was deemed by stewards to be to blame for the accident which took out the German, Kimi Raikkonen and Rubens Barrichello. The FIA International Court of Appeal hearing will take place in Paris.

Ralf managed to get back to the pits but the Williams was too badly damaged to continue. Raikkonen's McLaren was a write-off and the Ferrari not much better. Williams lodged the appeal on the grounds that Ralf was not the guilty party and the accident was not avoidable, as the stewards judged. The verdict is expected on August 20th, just a few days before the Hungarian GP.

"I'm truly shocked," Schumacher was quoted as saying by Bild. "I didn't do anything wrong. I'm definitely not a Rambo. It's very disappointing but incidents do happen when there are so many people around. I don't think I moved too far to the left, I was just trying to defend my position."

Opinion seems to be split on the incident, with Williams, naturally, and McLaren boss Ron Dennis believing it was a normal racing incident. Barrichello, however, said Ralf and Raikkonen took big risks in their moves and the Finn reportedly said Ralf shouldn't have tried to block the Ferrari.

Ferrari boss Jean Todt stayed diplomatic: "They (the stewards) have spoken with the drivers, they see much more, than what we can on our little monitors. They do their job, it's not up to me to judge whether their decision is good or not good."

If the penalty is upheld, Ralf will be demoted ten places on the grid at the Hungarian GP. Last time such a penalty was imposed, on Felipe Massa last year, Sauber opted to replace Massa with Heinz-Harald Frentzen for the one race, as the penalty was against the driver, not the team.

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