Ryan pays as McLaren take action

McLaren have moved to appease world motor sport’s governing body by sacking long-serving employee Dave Ryan over his role in Lewis Hamilton’s exclusion from the Australian Grand Prix.

The Woking-based team were yesterday ordered to appear before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris on April 29.

It is the third time McLaren have been hauled before the WMSC in less than two years, with the last hearing resulting in the team being handed a sporting record £49.2m (€54.7m) fine following the ’spy-gate’ furore.

The threat of fresh sanctions is looming after the team were deemed to be in breach of the FIA’s International Sporting Code, specifically Article 151c which relates to ’any fraudulent conduct, or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally’.

McLaren will answer charges that they provided misleading information to FIA-appointed stewards at separate hearings, on March 29 and April 2.

Former sporting director Ryan, who had been with McLaren since 1974, was suspended on Friday after the storm surrounding the case blew up ahead of the weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix.