Mosley insists: Hamilton may be bad for Formula One

Hamilton, who fell just a point short of clinching the Formula One championship in a stunning debut season, is credited with winning over a new worldwide audience.

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But Mosley, the FIA's outspoken president, said: "There is always somebody new. If it wasn't him, it would be either Nico Rosberg or Robert Kubica or one of the other new stars, a Sebastian Vettel, who would suddenly be the big one.

"So I think there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of Lewis Hamilton."

Yet Mosley, who attributed Hamilton's appeal to the fact he is "manifestly not from a rich background", believes the Briton may even become a turn-off.

Speaking on the BBC's Hardtalk programme, he said: "If Hamilton does the same thing next season as he's done this, it will certainly have a big effect. It will start to be negative because we'll get the Michael Schumacher effect, where people start writing to me saying: 'Can't you do something to slow him down?'"

Hamilton still has a slim chance of being handed the 2007 championship retrospectively, through an FIA court of appeal hearing two weeks today.

His McLaren team are disputing the stewards' decision not to punish Williams and BMW for running on illegally cool fuel in Brazil.

If their objection is upheld, the three drivers directly above Hamilton — Robert Kubica, Nick Heidfeld and Rosberg — could be excluded.

But there seems little chance of the race being reclassified so that Hamilton takes fourth place and displaces Kimi Raikkonen as world champion.

Mosley said: "It's possible, but very unlikely."

Mosley also went so far yesterday as to question Hamilton's honesty by casting doubt on the driver's claims that he knew nothing about McLaren's role in the spying row.

McLaren were fined £50million for trying out Ferrari technical secrets which came into their possession through a 780-page dossier.

Although Hamilton's team-mate, Fernando Alonso, and test driver Pedro de la Rosa owned up to involvement, Hamilton did not.

Mosley, the FIA president who chaired September's World Motor Sport Council hearing which levied the record fine, hinted: "It would be surprising if he didn't know something of what was going on."

He added: "But I've got absolutely no evidence that he had. On that basis, it would be wrong of me to suggest that he had."

By then it was too late, which appears to be how he wanted it.