Formula One’s governing body ruled in Paris today that the seven teams that boycotted the United States Grand Prix were guilty of failing to provide suitable tires and wrongfully refusing to allow their cars to start.

The FIA will not announce their punishments until September 14th and they could range from a reprimand to a ban, although the latter is not very likely as there are already too few teams in the sport. Other possible punishments could be fines or the loss of championship points.

The seven teams — BAR-Honda, McLaren-Mercedes, Red Bull, Renault, Sauber, Toyota and WilliamsBMW — withdrew from the race on June 19 after their tyre manufacturer, Michelin, said that its tires were unsafe for the Indianapolis circuit.

In a predictable joint statement, the teams said they were “very disappointed by the decision of the World Motor Sport Council to find them guilty” and that they would appeal. The teams said that they had “reasonably relied on Michelin, an approved FIA tire supplier” and so it wasn’t their fault if they were not given suitable tires.

The FIA cannot punish Michelin as there is no contract between them but they can apply pressure to the teams that they supply and they have already expressed a wish for there to be only a single tyre supplier in the future.