Damon Hill has accused Formula One’s race stewards of exercising double standards by refusing to implement the punishment that would have handed Lewis Hamilton the world championship.

Hamilton, who was denied the chance to win the title in his debut season by a single point after finishing a disastrous seventh in the Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday, could see his hopes resurrected if his McLaren team win an appeal against the latest controversial decision from the FIA.

Race stewards at Interlagos decided not to disqualify Williams or BMW despite irregularities with their cars’ fuel temperatures that is thought to have given them an illegal performance advantage.

Had they been punished, 22-year-old Hamilton would have been elevated to fourth place, giving him the title and denying race winner Kimi Raikkonen the F1 crown.

Expert View

The Hamiltons were so unfailingly upbeat that it was fair to wonder if it was an elaborate façade to hide the most colossal despair

Matt Dickinson

• More

• Post a comment

BACKGROUND

• Hamilton driven to despair in Brazil

• Search for answers gets under way

• Lauda and legends so quick to spot Hamilton greatness

• Champagne on ice after parties crashed

BACKGROUND

• Hamilton ready to overtake Beckham

• The young man will soon have his time

• The Insider - October 22

Multimedia

• Should McLaren win appeal?

Related Links

• Alonso launches fresh attack on McLaren

• McLaren appeal fuels Hamilton's slim hopes

• Hamilton driven to despair in Brazil

McLaren have been on the wrong side of FIA decisions on more than one occasion this season, not least when they were fined £50million in the ‘spy’ saga.

Hill, Britain’s last world champion, said: “Rules are rules. The FIA have found some teams are in breach of the regulations.

“If this had been something McLaren had done during the season, do you think the FIA would have insisted that their cars were legal or illegal?

“I think on past performance they’re prepared to persecute McLaren for any infringement that they’ve made this season.

“It does get quite difficult to see where the consistency lies because if you go back to the beginning of the season, McLaren’s argument is that Ferrari won the very first race using a device which was later found to be illegal by the FIA.

“They removed it but the result stood. It’s very unsettling to have this appeal, but there is so much at stake and the FIA have to find somehow a way of being consistent.

“I can see how a couple of degrees fuel temperature can be regarded as being so negligible that it wouldn’t make any difference.

“But we’re talking about such tiny differences all the time in Formula One, there has to be a line where you’re one side or the other.”

Hill believes the double standards especially apply where Ferrari are concerned.

“There is that feeling,” he said. “You have to say there’s no doubt there does sometimes seem to be one rule for Ferrari and another for everyone else. Ferrari are very important to the sport.”

Meanwhile, Eddie Jordan, the former team boss, believes Lewis Hamilton has no chance of being handed the Formula One world title unless McLaren can categorically prove their rivals cheated.

“You’ve got to prove that the fuel that went into the car, at the time that it went into the car, was 10 degrees lower than what the ambient temperature was,” he said.

“I’m not sure you can do that unless you’ve got very, very sophisticated special rigging system telling the telemetry as the fuel is going through the gantry into the car.

“Clearly, if it was there and it was readily available, the stewards would have acted on that and it would have had an immediate effect with the cars being excluded. The stewards have come out and said there was no such evidence.”

Jordan added: “I don’t see how they can get this overturned and suddenly get Lewis Hamilton champion.”

Jordan accepts Williams and BMW would have gained a significant advantage from cooler fuel.

“Yes, there is an advantage, no doubt about it,” he said. “If you put cooled or chilled fuel in a car, you get a 5-10 per cent horsepower increase.

“That is a significant amount and could be enough to exclude the car. But I’m not sure how at this late stage you can actually get that proved.”