KEY POINTS:
MILAN - Formula One leaders McLaren hit Ferrari where it hurt at Monza on Sunday but the post-race euphoria promises to be short-lived.
Sunday's Italian Grand Prix victors could themselves face a knockout blow at a Paris hearing on Thursday before they have a chance to renew hostilities
on the track in Belgium next weekend.
There is no certainty that McLaren will still have their 23-point advantage over Ferrari in the constructors' standings by the time first practice starts for the final European round of the season at Spa on Friday.
Indeed, there is no guarantee that the team, who have already lost 15 points from a sanction imposed in Hungary last month, will still be in the championship.
All eyes now are on the International Automobile Federation (FIA)'s World Motor Sport Council hearing to consider new evidence in a spying controversy that has gripped the sport for the past three months.
If found guilty of benefiting from a Ferrari technical dossier found in the possession of suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan, the Mercedes-powered team could be kicked out of this and next year's championships.
The threat hangs over what has been one of the most enthralling seasons in years, lit up by 22-year-old British rookie Lewis Hamilton and his battle with team mate and double world champion Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.
Alonso, winner of McLaren's first one-two success at Monza on Sunday, is now just three points adrift of Hamilton with four races remaining. Raikkonen, third, is 18 off the lead.
Sponsor concern
The worry for many in Formula One is what the whiff of scandal could do to the sport.
"This may cost Formula One some business. Hopefully not, but it's in every newspaper most days of the week," said team owner Frank Williams.
"I just have a bit of concern that if it goes on much longer, it will deter sponsors who are currently present in F1, or who are close to coming in."
Triple world champion and former team owner Jackie Stewart drew comparisons with the Tour de France, beset by doping scandals.
"The very foundations of this sport are based on its financial structure," he told Reuters.
"And that's based on multinational corporations having the confidence to come in to a sport of integrity. Why would we want to take our dirty washing and go out in the street and say 'look, my dirty linen is dirtier than yours."?
Martin Brundle, the former driver and television commentator, also expressed concern.
"If the FIA takes further constructors' points from McLaren, it will cost the team tens of millions of pounds and generate potential difficulties with sponsor and driver contracts, but at least it will not wreck the future of Formula One.
"If it bars them from the remaining races in this year's championship and beyond, it will be like hitting the self-destruct button," he wrote in the Sunday Times.
But Ferrari boss Jean Todt said Formula One had to face up to the situation.
"I think that we are sorry that it is happening in Formula One, but we are in the position where we want the truth to appear," he told reporters.
"And that's all that we want, and all that we have been working on and doing, and we are confident that the truth will come through."
- REUTERS