Williams to appeal Massa DQ, believes FIA is wrong

Rob Smedley says Williams will contest Felipe Massa's disqualification from the Brazilian Grand Prix, arguing the FIA's reading was wholly incorrect compared with its own measurements.

Massa - who finished eighth on the road - was thrown out of his home race after a pre-race tyre temperature check by the FIA revealed a reading of 137 degrees Celsius. The permitted maximum is 110 degrees Celsius.

However, Williams' head of engineering Smedley doesn't accept the readings to be correct, claiming the team has three independent readings of its own that show the temperature to be comfortably below the permitted level.

Though he says he is uncertain as to why the FIA's readings were so high, Smedley is confident the exclusion will be reversed.

"We are going to put in a notice of appeal because we pretty much disagree with that," he confirmed. "If you read the document, the right rear tyre of car 19, Massa, on the FIA IR Gun read 137C. We have two independent sensors, the first one is the PT1000 which sits inside the tyre blanket and tells us what the surface temperature is and that one was always in compliance with the regulations.

"The last time we could read it, when they took the set off to the grid, it was about 104C. the next independent measure we have is from the car data. This is a completely independent measure. The right rear tyre of Massa's car was 105.7C on the Texas infrared temp sensor. So we have two independent sensors which both say we were in compliance with the regulations. We have data to back that up.

"In addition, we have had independent correlation from our blanket temperature sensors and car temperature sensors to the FIA guns, which Pirelli did for us after all the fuss with Mercedes in Italy. In addition to that, we have also bought exactly the same sensor that the FIA uses and we do random checks throughout the weekend to make sure this does not happen.

"For us it's quite critical for us that we understand where his problem is. We have three independent temperature measures and none of them give anything like the measure the FIA took on the grid."

Indeed, Smedley says he is frustrated with the decision made, saying 'no explanation was given' for how they acquired the reading.

"There was no explanation whatsoever," he continued. "They explained to us that this is the reference measurement because it is the FIA measurement so this is the one that counts. The other three we have are of less consequence."