Symonds: Tragic if Kimi loses title in court
Renault's executive director of engineering Pat Symonds believes it would be a "tragedy for the sport" if Lewis Hamilton was to be crowned Formula 1 world champion in an appeal court.
McLaren has appealed the results of the Brazilian Grand Prix after the cars of Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, were alleged to have contained fuel outside the legal temperature range.
Should they be disqualified in the hearing on November 15, Hamilton could inherit fourth place and thus amass enough points to dethrone Kimi Raikkonen as champion.
"If McLaren appeals and win, the FIA are not duty bound to award Hamilton any additional points at all," said Symonds in Renault's latest podcast.
"They could disqualify the cars but they don't necessarily have to move people up the order, that's entirely at their discretion.
"It would be a tragedy for the sport after a year like we've had, if suddenly a week after the last race we changed our minds about who was world champion.
"So I very much doubt the FIA are going to do anything about it."
Symonds added however that the incident had highlighted the need for the FIA to update and modernise some of its scrutineering procedures.
"There are plenty of areas where things are a bit wooly and this may be a timely reminder to everyone to tidy up their act a little bit," he said.
"If you are dealing with rules and courts of appeal, you should be looking at things as if it was a civil court."
Symonds also revealed he had some sympathy for McLaren's plight in 2007, after the team proved to be arguably the most competitive force only to come away with nothing to show for it.
"I think that's devastating," said Symonds.
"When you look back at 2007 in years to come, people who actually remember the year will say that was a great fight between McLaren and Ferrari, but people who just look back at the record books will say oh, McLaren didn't do very well.
"To really be the class of the field, and I have a lot of respect for them, and come away with nothing must be terribly hard."
Asked why he thought McLaren had found itself in a situation where it lost the drivers' title despite having both its racers in contention, Symonds replied: "I think there were a few decisions that weren't correct, there was the allowance maybe to let the drivers forget that they were employees so there was a certain amount of mismanagement there.
"But I admire McLaren.
"The adversity that they have had this year. The whole thing of the court case hanging over them, their so-called rogue employee, it's an awful lot of dirty washing to be doing in public.
"They have held their heads up and kept their dignity I think and I admire that."
