Formula One: McLaren intend to appeal against a stewards' decision that stripped their Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton of victory in the Belgian Grand Prix.
"We have no option other than to register our intention to appeal," said a team spokesman.
Although the rules state McLaren will be unable to officially go ahead with a protest, the team still registered their intent to appeal,.
It is now one for the FIA Court of Appeal to determine if McLaren have grounds to pursue their complaint, otherwise it will simply be withdrawn.
Stewards decided Hamilton had cut the chicane and gained an advantage in lap 42 while battling Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen for the lead.
The trio of Nicholas Deschaux, Surinder Thatti and Yves Bacquelaine imposed a retrospective 25-second drive-through penalty against the McLaren star.
That demoted Hamilton to third place and cut his championship lead over Ferrari's Brazilian Felipe Massa, the race winner, to two points.
The news came two hours after Hamilton jubilantly believed he had won his fifth race this year.
Hamilton had left the track thinking he had taken maximum points and stretched his lead in the drivers' championship to eight points before the race stewards intervened.
In the French Grand Prix in June Hamilton did cut a corner and gained an advantage, and was appropriately handed a drive-through penalty.
No wonder the smiles turned into long faces inside McLaren, and ultimately a statement issued on behalf of the team.
A McLaren spokesman said: "We looked at all our data, and also made it available to the FIA stewards.
"It showed that, having lifted, Lewis was six kilometres per hour slower than Kimi as they crossed the start-finish line.
"Having passed the lead back to Kimi, Lewis repositioned his car, moving across and behind Kimi to the right-hand line, and then outbraked him into the hairpin.
"Based on this data, we have no option other than to register our intention to appeal.
"We are a racing team and we will now focus on Monza (the Italian Grand Prix next Sunday), with a view to extending our lead in the drivers' world championship."
Despite his joy at the win, describing his fight with Raikkonen as "one of the most exciting for a long time," Hamilton perhaps had an inkling as to what might transpire.
Asked prior to the penalty whether he would be surprised if the stewards did punish him, Hamilton replied: "Absolutely, absolutely.
"This is motor racing and if there's a penalty, then there's something wrong because I was ahead going into that corner, so I didn't gain an advantage from it.
"We were still able to race at the next corner and I gave him his spot back, and I think it was fair and square, so I think it would be absolutely wrong."
Somewhat pertinently, he added: "But you know what they (stewards) are like."
Not for the first time this season Hamilton has incurred the wrath of the stewards, initially in Bahrain when he and team-mate Heikki Kovalainen were handed five-place grid penalties for impeding other drivers in qualifying.
Hamilton was then demoted 10 places for the French Grand Prix after driving into the back of Raikkonen in the pit lane in the previous race in Canada.
Add in the drive-through penalty in Magny-Cours and a €5,000 fine for being late to a press conference in Valencia a fortnight ago, and it has been a miserable year in one respect for Hamilton.
And so F1 moves on to Italy, Ferrari's home ground, with Raikkonen just about in the title race as he is now 19 points adrift in the wake of sliding into a wall on lap 43 due to the wet conditions.
As for the minor places, Fernando Alonso was fourth in his Renault, followed by Sebastian Vettel for Toro Rosso, BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Sebastien Bourdais in his Toro Rosso.
Toyota's Timo Glock did finish eighth, but in a busy day for the stewards, he was handed a 25-second penalty for overtaking under waved yellow flags, allowing Red Bull's Mark Webber to claim the final point.
-Reuters