Formula One:Jenson Button has two races to make the most of his clear advantage in his pursuit of this year's Formula One world title. Button and Brawn GP were unsurprisingly given the green light to maintain their championship assault in the wake of the team's car being deemed legal.
The FIA's International Court of Appeal confirmed the design of the controversial 'double-decker' diffuser employed by Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams did not contravene the technical regulations.
It means Button's wins in the season-opening races in Australia and Malaysia now stand, along with the 15 points so far collected.
The 29-year-old is now a clear favourite to make it a hat-trick of victories in this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, and potentially in Bahrain just seven days later.
Beyond then, though, Button can steel himself for a counter-attack from the seven teams left counting the cost of the decision.
Given the back-to-back nature of the forthcoming races, it is too early to expect an immediate response from the aggrieved parties.
Renault, however, announced during the eight-hour hearing in Paris they have a prototype ready to be installed that could yet be used in Shanghai.
For the remaining teams, the likelihood is they will have their new diffusers up and running by the time the European season begins in earnest on May 10th in Barcelona.
Whilst Brawn will naturally not stand still themselves, given the resources available to Ferrari, McLaren and BMW Sauber, their rate of development in the wake of the ruling will be significant.
At present, of last year's top four, quite remarkably only reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton has a point to his name, with Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica sitting on zero.
Button knows he needs to stretch his championship lead in China and Bahrain as he is fully expecting his rivals to soon make inroads.
"I am understandably delighted with how our season has begun," said Button."However, we're only two races in and everyone at the team is aware our competitors will not stand still.
"We fully expect a tough fight from here if we want to continue our early successes."
But just how quickly Ferrari can get up to speed remains to be seen as the decision by the five ICA judges has come as a severe kick in the teeth.
The team are currently enduring their worst start to a season since 1992, and now they face radically revamping the car to accommodate their own diffuser design.
Expressing the problems ahead, team boss Stefano Domenicali said: "Unfortunately this decision forces us to intervene on fundamental areas of the car's design in order to be able to compete on an equal footing with some of the teams from a point of view of the technical regulations, and that will take time and money.
"We will now double our efforts to get the team back to the highest level of competitiveness."
Should they do so, we could soon begin to see a restoration of F1's natural order as it has been estimated the new diffuser has so far been worth up to half a second per lap.
Whether the decision has already decided the championship, a view expressed by two former world champions in Raikkonen and Renault's Fernando Alonso, is unlikely.
But certainly Brawn GP have the edge right now following a victory for technical innovation, as fervently espoused by Brawn during the case at the FIA's headquarters.
Brawn, who stood firm in the face of a stringent cross-examination by Ferrari's renowned lawyer Nigel Tozzi QC, naturally feels justice has been served.
"We are pleased with the decision reached by the ICA," confirmed Brawn.
"We respect the right of our competitors to query any design or concept used on our cars through the channels available to them.
"The FIA technical department, the stewards at the Australian and Malaysian Grands Prix and now five judges at the ICA have confirmed our belief that our cars have always strictly complied with the 2009 technical regulations.
"The decision of the ICA brings this matter to its conclusion and we look forward to continuing on the track the challenge of what has been a very exciting start to the world championship."
Brawn's words were echoed by Toyota boss Tadashi Yamashina as he also felt vindicated following the ruling.
"I was confident the Court of Appeal would reach this verdict and I am satisfied with it," said Yamashina.
"This has been a challenging period for Formula One and I am pleased this issue is now in the past and we can focus on an exciting season on the track."