Blog: Damon Hill Accuses Formula 1 Race Stewards Of Double Standards

McLaren

Oct 24, 2007

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

Hamilton, denied becoming the first rookie to win the title by a single point after a disastrous Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday, could see his hopes resurrected if his team McLaren 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, denying race winner Kimi Raikkonen the F1 crown.

After an explosive season which has seen F1 on the front pages as well as the back, Hill is refusing to predict the outcome of this final twist, saying: “I’ve lost the ability to guess what’s going to happen in Formula One.” Ben Rumsby, SportingLife.com

He did not win the world title, in the most heart-breaking of fashions, but Lewis Hamilton has changed the face of Formula One this year. In fact, it is fair to say he has become it.

For a driver in his first year in the sport, that is an incredible feat. But then there seems to be nothing about the 22-year-old English phenomenon that is not incredible.

As the former world champion Damon Hill has said, no-one has ever seen a rookie like Hamilton. And if that sounds like hyperbole, given the drivers who have come before Hamilton, it is not. It is a simple statement of fact.

Hamilton did not just beat Alonso; he got under his skin.

He is young, cool, strikingly good-looking, and the first driver of Afro-Caribbean origin in a traditionally very conservative sporting environment.

Despite his entry into the world of celebrity, Hamilton’s appeal is that he is clearly not the son of privilege. Andrew Benson, NationNews.com

An enquiry immediately after the race ruled that the benefit BMW gained was not enough to warrant disqualification, but former champion Damon Hill, among others, believes the FIA is applying double standards against McLaren.

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

Whatever the result of this appeal – and we must admit it seems unlikely that McLaren will get the title decision overturned – it crowns a dramatic, controversial F1 championship which has been decided as much by FIA committees as it has racing. As the popularity of Formula One makes a resurgence, let’s hope this final dispute does no more to damage the sport’s credibility. AutoCar.co