Not for the first time in the past two dramatic years in Formula One, the sport is in uproar. After the controversial decision by the stewards at the Belgian Grand Prix to take Lewis Hamilton's wonderful victory drive away from him, his supporters are convinced that he is being victimised by the FIA, the sport's ruling body.

A trawl through the websites of world motor sport showed that there is anger among Hamilton's legions of fans at a ruling that wrecked one of the most memorable climaxes to a grand prix. Not only that, this had arguably been the young British driver's finest hour in his short career at the top as he and Kimi Raikkonen, of Ferrari, fought an explosive duel in treacherous conditions for glory in Spa-Francorchamps.

According to the fans, handing their hero a 25-second “drive-through” penalty two hours after the race ended - it demoted him to third place and gave the spoils to Felipe Massa, Raikkonen's team-mate - was variously proof of a “conspiracy” in the FIA against Hamilton and his team, McLaren Mercedes, a “travesty of justice”, a “racist agenda” against Hamilton or, at least, evidence of incompetence by those charged to uphold the rules of the sport.

At the McLaren headquarters outside Woking, in Surrey, as managers weighed up whether to appeal against the decision, which they must do today, the team and Hamilton wisely kept a low profile and did not stoke the fire. However, there is no doubt that McLaren, Ron Dennis, the team principal, Hamilton and his father and manager, Anthony, believe that they are being picked on by the FIA, even if they are not prepared to say so in public.

But is this the case? Is there a hidden agenda within the Formula One hierarchy and the FIA to hit McLaren every time they see an opportunity to stop Hamilton from winning the World Championship? Is there a secret plan to favour Ferrari at McLaren and Hamilton's expense and are the stewards at every race track biased against McLaren, or is this just what one FIA source described yesterday as a “British mythology”?

While there is plenty of evidence to support the contention that Ferrari are treated differently from other teams - the Scuderia are regarded by Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One ringmaster, and Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, as the goose that lays the Formula One's golden eggs - and there is a close relationship between Mosley and Ferrari, it is hard to argue that anything is rigged. The way the sport is administered may be, at times, incompetent or inconsistent, but to go from this to the contention that it is a “fix” is a huge and unwarranted leap.

Since Hamilton took his place on the grid, McLaren have shown themselves to be a curious mix of unequalled perfectionism and blundering stupidity, while Hamilton, like any participant in sport who has the quality to be one of the greatest, plies his trade on the edge of legality. Just as Ayrton Senna, his hero, did, he drives with an arrogance that says to everyone: “I own this sport.”

The team and Hamilton have attracted the attentions of the stewards more than they should be doing, but why should he or they escape punishment when their cars block rivals in qualifying, when Hamilton crashes into Raikkonen in the pits, when he overtakes while running over the curbs and when he appears to the stewards to have gained an unfair advantage when attacking Raikkonen at Spa?

This is not to say that the FIA should emerge from this affair unchallenged. Far from it. Its case would be easier to advance were it not known that Mosley detests Dennis (feelings that are reciprocated), that Mosley oversaw the levying of the biggest fine in sporting history (£50 million) on McLaren for cheating last season, that until recently Alan Donnelly, the governing body's chief steward, counted Ferrari's road car manufacturing division among the clients of his lobbying company, and that FIA stewards have a knack of delivering inconsistent decisions that seem to favour Ferrari.

While Mosley hangs on to his post after a sex scandal that has polluted the sport, the FIA could nevertheless improve the way it goes about its policing of Formula One and, in the case of stewarding decisions, strive for greater consistency and transparency, one of its favourite concepts.

¤ Massa said yesterday that he believed Hamilton had been “a bit too optimistic” in his manoeuvre against Raikkonen and that he did not allow Raikkonen to restore fully his position before attacking him after the chicane at Spa.