If McLaren choose to pursue their appeal, it would temper new world champion Kimi Raikkonen’s title celebrations following his remarkable triumph at Interlagos.
McLaren believe that the stewards missed vital evidence, and that could cast fresh doubt on an already controversial and dramatic championship.
The stewards launched an investigation as BMW Sauber and Williams were found to be in breach of technical regulations regarding fuel temperatures.
However, after a three-hour hearing, the stewards chose to impose no penalty on either team.
If they had done so, Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, who finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, could easily have been stripped of their points.
That would have promoted Lewis Hamilton up to fourth place and given the 22-year-old the crown in his rookie year.
Hamilton could finish only seventh as he suffered a gearbox issue on lap eight which relegated him from sixth to 18th at the time.
It resulted in the young British star finishing agonisingly just one point shy of Raikkonen, who at one stage trailed Hamilton by 26 points after the United States Grand Prix in June.
However, McLaren feel there are Sporting Working Group minutes that negate the two points made by the stewards as to why they did not impose a penalty.
If they do appeal and can prove their argument, there may yet be one final twist in an extraordinary season.
McLaren insist that their argument is nothing to do with Ferrari, as many critics might perhaps believe, given the enmity that exists between the two teams.
Rather, they say, it is a case of seeing the regulations upheld, just as they have been done on occasions against them this season.
Ex-Formula One driver and JEP columnist Derek Warwick was bitterly disappointed by the result of the race but believes that McLaren would be wrong to try to win it in the courts.
‘McLaren should just let it lie,’ he said.
‘The championship has run its course and to try to get the result overturned in the courts would just tarnish it.
‘Bernie Ecclestone said before the race that the best outcome would be Kimi Raikkonen taking the championship, and with him backing the Ferrari driver anyone trying to take them on would be on a very sticky wicket.
‘Over the 17 races of the season Lewis Hamilton has come out of it as the great British hope, and you wouldn’t want him to be tarnished by winning his first championship controversially.
Nobody would get any satisfation from that situation.
‘McLaren should be taking a serious look at themselves because they have made too many schoolboy errors all year, and it is those that have cost Hamilton.
I would certainly like to hear an explanation for his third pit-stop yesterday, for example.’
