Lawyers for the international racing federation FIA will be in court here on Tuesday to answer charges filed by Ferrari that regulation changes for next year were made in violation of Formula One's Concorde Agreement.
According to Ferrari, the agreement, which was prolonged in 2005 and now expires in 2012, gave the Italian team veto power over regulation changes unilaterally decided by FIA.
In particular, Ferrari is objecting to a budget cap which it claims is not enforceable and would crate a two-tier situation on the track.
Based on FIA's proposal, teams which respect the budget cap would have greater technical leeway than those which don't.
Tuesday's hearing was put on a fast track at Ferrari's request because teams must sign up for the 2010 season next week.
The court will limit itself to ruling on whether the changes violated the Concorde Agreement and not examine the merit of the regulation changes.
The court's ruling will also be open to appeal.
FIA and its chairman, Max Mosley, want to budget cap in order to drawn more teams into the sport and to offer an incentives to the smaller teams.
Ferrari, which also has the backing of Renault and Toyota, is not opposed to cutting costs but feels a budget cap would be difficult to enforce and the granting of technical leeway would create a condition on inequality on the track.
In recent comments to the British daily The Guardian, Piero Ferrari, the son of company founder Enzo Ferrari, observed that ''if we are on the starting line of a Grand Prix, we have to have the same regulations, the same technical specifications''.
''It's like soccer. In Italy we have Inter Milan which spends huge amounts of money for the best players to win the championship. But you also have a team like Catania, which has no money. So do you say to Catania, 'you can play with 12 players,' and to Inter, 'you must play with nine'? It wouldn't be fair,'' the Ferrari board member added.
''This is what the new Formula One rules are like and it's unacceptable. Everybody on the grid has to start with the same rules, otherwise there's no competition and it's somebody else deciding who's going to win,'' Piero Ferrari said.
Should FIA succeed in imposing its new rules for next season, Ferrari's board has formally authorised management to drop out of Formula 1 next season.
Renault, Toyota and the Red Bull-Toro Rosso teams have said they will do likewise.
Ferrari has been involved in Formula 1 every year since it started in 1950.
After meeting with team representatives last week, Mosley said he did not think Ferrari and the others would bow out but indicated that he had no intention of backtracking on his proposals.
On Monday, Mosley made it clear that teams which did not sign up by May 29 for next season would not be part of Formula 1 in 2010.
He also said that FIA would go to court should rebel team decided to set up their won championship.
