Revealed! The three stewards who denied Hamilton victory

Only this May, Surinder Thatthi - the Tanzanian who, bizarrely, represents Kenya on the FIA's World Motor Sport Council - complained in an email exchange about world rally champion Sebastien Loeb's 'scruffy' appearance.

donnelly

Hamilton, however, might just raise a chuckle at the irony of such a staunch Max Mosley loyalist implying that Loeb was bringing the sport into disrepute so soon after the FIA president's whipped backside was bared as part of a newspaper sting.

At Spa on Sunday, Thatthi was one of three stewards who controversially denied McLaren's Hamilton one of the most enthralling wins of his career on the flimsy 'evidence' that, having cut a corner, he refused to yield the advantage back to Kimi Raikkonen before passing him.

Two hours after the race they announced their verdict to impose a retrospective 25-second penalty and handed the original runner-up, Raikkonen's Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, the victory. The Brazilian is now just two points short of Hamilton's championship lead with five rounds remaining.

Today Sportsmail reveals who the stewards are and asks what role two other influential FIA figures played in the decision-making process.

Thatthi's fellow stewards at the weekend were the little-known head of the Belgian federation, Yves Bacquelaine, and Nicholas Deschaux, the highly rated head of the French federation. A lawyer, he is that rarest of things among the FIA's closed ranks - a Mosley detractor.

He was one of the few dissenting voices prior to the vote of confidence on whether Mosley should stay after the colourful sex expose.

Deschaux, therefore, is unlikely to have played along with any FIA conspiracy (though he could have been out-voted), were it based either on the governing body's desire to see Ferrari win because of their historic importance to the sport or because of Mosley's known dislike for McLaren boss Ron Dennis.

Both theories have been around for the last decade, not least during Michael Schumacher's heyday. Or could it be that the FIA simply want to spice up the title battle? We simply do not know because they have not yet decided to explain their processes.

Niki Lauda, the triple world champion, called on them to do precisely that at Monza prior to this Sunday's Italian Grand Prix. It might be what the public want, but it will not happen.

The stewards, unpaid amateurs, are changed for every race. The trio who sat in judgment in Belgium will simply not be in attendance. It means they cannot go through their findings point by point.

The nearest we will get to that is if McLaren appeal. They have until midnight on Tuesday to decide and are currently weighing up whether it is worth the legal fees and the hassle.

How, then, does the conspiracy theory hold together if the stewards revolve 18 times a year?

Alongside the stewards are a couple of key men: Charlie Whiting, the race controller. He, like Mosley, lives in the millionaire's tax haven of Monaco. They work from the same office and are long-term friends and allies.

The stewards act solely on his reports. In other words, he asks them to investigate this matter or that. The same applied on Sunday, yet he did not report Raikkonen for overtaking just as a yellow flag was first being waved.

The other figure in the background is Alan Donnelly, a former Labour leader in the European Parliament, who owns the lobbyists, Sovereign Strategy, based at the FIA's old Trafalgar Square HQ. He acts as Mosley's official representative at every race and as the stewards' 'co-ordinator'.

A first-class strategist and perhaps the closest Mosley adviser, he has rightly speeded up the deliberations since taking on the facilitator role this season.

But on Monday a disbelieving public could be forgiven for asking why a career politician is employed in that capacity. Especially when Mosley is only a phone call away.