It has been confirmed that Spyker has now begun the arbitration process, as the customer car row escalates to the next stage.

It is not yet known officially which teams are involved because although there is doubt over the 2007 entries from Toro Rosso and Super Aguri, it is thought that the 2007 Red Bull entry could be involved - since like the Toro Rosso it is 'built' by a third party called Red Bull Technologies - and even the 2006 Toro Rosso, which was essentially the 2005 Red Bull.

Speaking to Pitpass on Friday morning a source close to the FIA confirmed that though the process has begun; "it will take forever, cost a fortune and simply move backwards and forwards," he said.

The next step is that the Chamber of Commerce in Lausanne will make a ruling, however it could well decide that the FIA needs to make a technical ruling, hence the claim that this will take forever.

Although the process is underway, talks aimed at reaching an 'out of court' settlement will be ongoing, with our source of the opinion that this will be the case

Despite media claims that the Australian Grand Prix would be disrupted, the race in Melbourne passed without any major rows and certainly no hint whatsoever of teams being omitted from the event.

With Spyker having begun the process it will be interesting to see whether Williams will join in, the British team having been extremely vocal on the issue up until now.

Then again, with the Super Aguris embarrassing the works Hondas - after all they are using the 2006 car, and have access to a much smaller budget - could we see the Brackley based team join in the fun?