PARIS -- A French appeals court Wednesday turned down the Tyrrell Formula One auto racing team's petition to get back points lost when it was banned from the 1984 world championship and declare FISA's vote to maintain fuel consumption limits invalid.
Appeals court judge Xavier Nicot overturned a lower courts ruling in December that granted Tyrrell a temporary injuction against the 1984 suspension.
Team manager Ken Tyrrell said the case would proceed to regular courts and was not likely to be decided before the start of the 1985 Formula One season.
Tyrrell said he hoped to have reinstated the 13 world championship points won by drivers Martin Brundle of Britain and Stefan Bellof of West Germany when the team was banned from the championship for using illegal ballast and fuel at the Detroit Grand Prix in June.
He said the loss of points cost the team between $500,000 and $600,000 in bonuses.
He also hoped to annul a vote by FISA, auto racing's world governing body, to maintain maximum fuel capacity for Formula One cars at 220 liters. The August vote reversed a decision taken two years earlier to drop fuel capacity to 195 liters as a safety measure.
He said the vote, which needed unanimous approval by team directors, was taken after his team was banned.
Tyrrell accused his FISA partners of fabricating false charges against his team so he would be ineligible to vote. He said retaining the 220-liter limit benefitted only turbo-powered cars, while Tyrrell runs the only non-turbo cars on the circuit.
'All the other teams have turbo charged engines and all of them wanted to raise the limit,' said Tyrrell. 'But they needed my signature to do that and I would never do it. One way to do it was to cook up a case against us, which they did.'
FISA banned Tyrrell when it was discovered at the Detroit Grand Prix that lead ball bearings had been placed in the water tanks of the Tyrrell cars to increase their weight to the 1,200-pound limit.
Tyrrell's world championship points were redistributed among other teams and the British team was barred from competing in further races that year.
It was the second court victory in two days for FISA following a court ruling Tuesday dismissing the Automobile Club of Monaco's demand that the Monaco Grand Prix be reinstated to the 1985 world championship.
The ACM, which organizes the prestigious Formula One race, had filed a petition claiming damages of $10,000 for each day the Monaco race was not included on the world championship calendar.
FISA banned the Monaco Grand Prix Nov. 15 when it failed to resolve a dispute with the ACM over the club's signing of an exclusive, long-term television contract with an American network.
The Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) holds exclusive rights to broadcasts of world championship races.
The ACM had also asked the court to suspend the federation's power to ban the club from FIA, which is to be voted on by the federation's general assembly at a meeting that begins next Tuesday.
The court on Dec. 7 asked the two parties to try to settle the dispute among themselves and ordered the federation to reserve the Monaco race's traditional May 19 date on its world championship schedule.
FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre Wednesday said the court ruling 'strengthens FIA's power and authority over international racing.
'FIA will defend itself with any means to win this test of strength it has been forced into by the president of the ACM,' Balestre said in a statement.
