Formula One chief Mosley blasts back at Hamilton 'conspiracy' claims

No whips and chains.

No visit to the Chelsea flat where he was filmed taking part in that infamous orgy of particularly colourful hue.

FIA President Max Mosley has blasted back at Lewis Hamilton 'conspiracy' theory suggestions

But by any other yardstick, it was a remarkable performance from the FIA president after marking his return to the Formula One paddock following his victory in a privacy action against the News of the World for implying the said sex‘party’ had a Nazi theme.

He was in combative mood, seemingly untroubled by the past few months.

‘The only thing that gets to me is boredom,’ he declared.

No danger of that in his sweeping denunciation of anyone who does not see Formula One, morality, newspapers and religion from his perspective.

Even one former head of England’s Established Church was decried as if he were a dotty Sunday School teacher.

However, someone who did emerge unscathed from his barbed tongue was Lewis Hamilton, the British McLaren driver who starts Sunday's Italian Grand Prix here leading the world championship.

He takes a two-point advantage over Felipe Massa into the race on Ferrari’s home tarmac, but it would have been eight had he not been controversially handed a 25-second penalty in Belgium last Sunday after he was judged to have gained an advantage by cutting a chicane.

That decision, made by the FIA’s stewards, has led to accusations of bias against McLaren. In some quarters, there is even the suspicion that Mosley — son of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and an anti-immigration campaigner in his youth — is manipulating the rules to prevent Hamilton winning the title.

But Mosley denied the possibility of any interference and said of Hamilton, the 23-year-old son of a mixed marriage: ‘It would be excellent for motor racing in every way if Lewis won the world championship.

‘I’d love to see it. It doesn’t mean we are going to help him or hinder him.

'We are going to be completely neutral.'

Britain's Lewis Hamilton (right) and McLaren Mercedes CEO Ron Dennis share a joke ahead of Sunday's Italian Grand Prix

What, then, of those who made the decision: the Belgian, Kenyan and French stewards in collaboration with Alan Donnelly, who coordinated the judging panel?

Mosley, who was in Peru when Hamilton’s win was scrubbed,confirmed that he did not speak to the decision-makers at the time, adding that fans believed there was a conspiracy afoot because ‘you people continually print it’.

He added: ‘It’s absolute nonsense. It couldn’t be more nonsensical.

'If we wanted to do something bad there are so many things that we could do that you would never begin to see.

‘In the scrutineering, we could give a small advantage to any team.

'We never dream of doing that because the moment you do that, you destroy the whole basis.

'The truth of the matter is that everybody in England and a lot of people outside England really want Lewis to win.

'And good that they do, but they allow that to distort their judgment.

‘I am not going to express an opinion one way or another about Belgium and in fact I haven’t seen it enough even to have a view.'

He was not so reticent about anything else. 

He reiterated his belief that a figure from within Formula One was behind the newspaper sex sting in an attempt to destroy him, but said he would not name anyone until Lord Stevens, the former head of the Metropolitan Police, finished his inquiry into the matter.

Excusing himself if he appeared immodest, Mosley claimed to have received overwhelming support from the motor racing community around the world and hinted at staying as president beyond his term of office, which expires in October, 2009.

‘It remains my firm intention to go then, but you cannot ignore what people say,’ he explained.

He then railed against anything so impertinent as criticism. Anyone who disapproved of his paying for regular sado-masochism sessions is behind the times.

He said: ‘That silly old retired Archbishop (George) Carey. He somehow thinks he has got the right to tell society how it should behave.

‘But in my opinion he hasn’t. He has the right to tell the tiny number of people that still want to goto his church, by all means.

'But don’t tell me. I don’t go to his church.

'Interestingly, when the News of the World called up the three current religious leaders —the Archbishop, the Cardinal and the Chief Rabbi, none of them would comment, as they know it isnot their business.

‘It is their business to tell the followers of their religion what to do, but not other people.’

As for newspaper editors, their disapproval is ‘laughable’ and their publications ‘gutter press’.

Mosley arrived in Italy to be met by, shall we say, lashing rain.

Morning practice was called off 30 minutes from the end, with Kimi Raikkonen, who extended his Ferrari contract until 2010, leading the way in the afternoon.

However, Hamilton, whose Belgian Grand Prix appeal hearing will be heard in Paris on Monday week, remains the paddock favourite, stewards allowing.