The McLaren-Mercedes Formula One team was on Thursday night fined $100m – a sum unprecedented in sport – and thrown out of this year’s F1 constructors’ championship by motor sport’s top judicial body.

The FIA World Motor Sport Council took the action after finding the Anglo-German team, which until Thursday night led the competition, guilty of fraudulent behaviour relating to a technical dossier belonging to rival Ferrari which was found in the possession of a senior employee.