By Phil Huff
May 4 2005

BAR Honda have maintained that they have done nothing wrong following a tough day in court defending the actions of the team, with team boss Nick Fry happy at the days events. Defending against the accusations of hiding fuel, Technical Director Geoffrey Willis explained that the team had not been asked to drain all the fuel from the car.

"The request we had to do was a lifted pump out," said Willis. "We have never been asked to do a full pump-put."

Engineers at the track were asked if the car was fully drained, and a team member said "yes". Following this, the second tank and remaining fuel was discovered.

"The car required fuel in the collector to work," Willis explained. "That is the position we use for our own weight calculations."

According to Willis, BAR need at least 6kg of fuel in the car to make it operate - with less than 5.29kg the car start malfunctioning.

Willis flatly rejected the accusation of cheating, stating "There is a common culture through the team of integrity and fairness, and I have no doubt that there is no-one in the team who does not have the same integrity of keeping with the rules."

BAR Honda CEO Nick Fry was happy with the days proceedings, admitting he was "very, very proud of what all the team members did. I think they presented themselves absolutely superbly and with huge professionalism and integrity.

"It was never challenged that the car was below the minimum weight limit - that wasn't even raised and I think that is a good point to start with that we were above the 600kg - which of course we have always maintained.

"Even more important than that is the point about deception. I think it was conclusively proved by ourselves that there was no case of deception of bad faith and on top of that it appeared to be accepted by at least one of the FIA officials that that appeared to be the case.

"Overall I think we presented a very strong case and I hope overnight the judges consider that carefully."

The Court will announce their decision tomorrow.