MOTORSPORT: Sauber loses appeal -- cars next?

On the eve of the Formula One World Championship opener in Melbourne this week, Swiss team Sauber is in turmoil.

Apart from being severely short of cash, Sauber has lost its appeal against the order that it install Dutch driver Giedo van der Garde in one of its cars for the Australian Grand Prix and its cars and its team principal’s passport could be seized.

Immediately after Sauber lost its appeal in a Melbourne court late this afternoon the van der Garde camp initiated contempt of court proceedings.

It said Sauber was ignoring the instructions of a European arbitration tribunal, reinforced by the decision of Justice Clyde Croft in the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday, that it reinstate van der Garde as a race driver in the team.

That would mean Sauber dropping one of the two drivers it has nominated to race, Swede Marcus Ericsson and Brazilian rookie Felipe Nasr, with first practice scheduled to begin at 12:30pm Friday.

Justice Croft, who heard the contempt claim this evening, has ordered that the parties return to court at 10:30am Friday, with Sauber told to provide a list of its assets in Australia – which will be primarily its two Ferrari-engined C34 cars.

Van der Garde’s senior barrister, Jim Peters QC, claimed the Sauber camp was constantly stalling the Dutchman, hoping that it would get through the GP weekend in Melbourne and out of the country next week without having to comply with the orders against it.

Peters indicated he would press for seizure of the cars and Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn’s passport if the team did not comply, but that it would not ask for her to be jailed.

Kaltenborn (pictured) appeared at the court of appeal this morning.

F1’s governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, did not have any input in the appeal hearing, in which Sauber claimed it would be unsafe to put van der Garde in one of the C34s as it could not be adapted to his height and shape in time.

Peters indicated the van der Garde camp already had spoken to specialist accounting firm Ferrier Hodgson about seizing the Sauber cars.