Lewis Hamilton’s dream of winning the Formula One World Championship was still on course last night after the FIA decided to fine his McLaren Mercedes team £50 million for cheating and throw them out of the constructors’ championship, but did not punish their drivers.

In a decision that sent shock waves through the sport, the governing body handed down a draconian sentence after finding McLaren guilty of using secret technical information stolen from Ferrari on their cars, despite robust denials by Ron Dennis, the Woking-based team’s principal.

The punishment includes the loss of revenue from television rights and constructors’ championship prize-money — believed to be about £25 million — but is still the biggest financial penalty in sporting history.

“The most important thing is that we are going to be motor racing this weekend [at the Belgian Grand Prix], for the rest of the season and every season,” Dennis said. “I do not accept that we deserved to be penalised or to have our reputation damaged in this way. We clearly demonstrated that we did not use any leaked information to gain a competitive advantage.”

Leading British voices in the sport also condemned the scale of the fine. Sir Stirling Moss said: “I’m absolutely staggered — this is terrible. The whole of motor racing has been shaken and the only thing they [[the FIA] have done right is to allow the drivers to keep points. McLaren are banned, fair enough, but I can’t believe a fine like that.”

Sir Jackie Stewart, the three-time world champion, was also astonished at the scale of the financial punishment. “Even if they were found guilty of the crime, it does not justify this type of penalty,” he said.

In a statement issued from the FIA headquarters in Paris, where the 26-member World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) sat in session all day to consider new evidence linking McLaren’s racing operations with data stolen from Ferrari, the governing body underlined that no punishment was required for Hamilton, the British rookie who leads the drivers’ championship by three points, or Fernando Alonso, his Spanish team-mate and nearest rival. “Due to the exceptional circumstances, in which the FIA gave the team’s drivers an immunity in return for providing evidence, there is no penalty in regard to drivers’ points,” the FIA said.

However, the FIA said that it will investigate McLaren’s car for next season and consider in December whether further sanctions are necessary should there be evidence it had been influenced by Ferrari secrets.

Ferrari said they were satisfied that what they called “the truth” had emerged. The team, now sure to win the constructors’ title, said that the new evidence had shed light on “facts and behaviour” involving McLaren of “an extremely serious nature”.

The new evidence is thought to have centred on e-mail correspondence between Alonso and Pedro De La Rosa, the McLaren test driver, plus phone traffic between McLaren’s suspended chief designer, Mike Coughlan, and the former Ferrari chief mechanic, Nigel Stepney.

Hamilton was part of a 19-strong McLaren delegation at the hearing but left at lunchtime without having made a contribution. His last-minute inclusion was seen as an attempt by Dennis to underline to WMSC members the damage it might cause to the sport if it docked points from the drivers.

For Dennis, the outcome was also a big personal setback. Although McLaren were thought likely to appeal, it appeared that the WMSC had rejected his central argument — that his team had not been “contaminated” by secret information obtained from Ferrari by Coughlan.

The drama in Paris underlined how a season that started with such promise for Dennis, who has nurtured Hamilton’s career for more than ten years, has gone so badly wrong. The team are in disarray over the bitter rivalry between Alonso and Hamilton and the decision to expel them from the constructors’ championship will increase the prospect that Alonso may seek to leave at the end of the season, whether or not he wins the drivers’ title.

The verdict will also hurt McLaren’s sponsors, led by the mobile phone giant, Vodafone, though there were no suggestions last night that any of them were about to jump ship.