Question mark over title race - Mosley

Mosley, who along with his fellow World Motor Sport Council members punished McLaren in Thursday's spy hearing in Paris, feels this year's title race will forever be tainted.

"I think he will probably feel more comfortable if he wins a subsequent championship, which I am sure he will, without any of these question marks," said Mosley. "There was a big debate in the World Council about whether all the points should go - team and drivers."

He added: "We discussed whether to take the drivers' points from McLaren, but allow the drivers to drive, don't interfere with their super licence and so on.

"The lawyers felt everything should go - drivers points and all - because they argued: how can you give the world champion's cup to someone who may have had an unfair advantage over other drivers?

"They have effectively cheated. But the other side of it was, here is this brilliant world championship between Hamilton and Alonso.

"The sporting people were saying, 'If you interfere with that, you are spoiling a very good championship. It wasn't the drivers' fault.' But there again, it never is.

"Very often, for example, a car will be disqualified from a race because it is a kilo overweight which will probably make no difference at all, but you have to have this principle.

"It's the same as in athletics or anywhere else, if you're outside of the rules, you are not in the game.

"So there will always be a question mark over it, there has to be, because nobody knows how big an advantage they had from that. But that they had an advantage is almost beyond dispute."