Kenyan official Thathi defends action against Hamilton

• No conspiracy against the McLaren team.
• Thathi will be in Zambia for this weekend’s round of the Africa Rally Championships.

"The British Press hates me but I can walk into any Italian restaurant - Italians love me,” Kenyan motorsports official Surinder Thathi joked as he defended his team of officials’ decision to strip British driver Lewis Hamilton of victory at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Former Safari Rally navigator Thathi, one of the three stewards at the Belgian Formula One race, said in Nairobi that there was no conspiracy against the McLaren team.

“There was no conspiracy against anybody, McLaren included. We acted professionally and within the FIA rules. Hamilton took a short cut inside of the corner while off the track,” Thathi told Reuters.

British tabloid newspapers have claimed Hamilton was a victim of a conspiracy against McLaren after the stewards decided he had cut the chicane and gained an unfair advantage over Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton was relegated to third place.

“We had a choice to mete out a time penalty or 10 grid places in the next Grand Prix race. We opted for the former and handed a time penalty of 25 seconds,” Thathi said.

“I know I am a very unpopular person in the United Kingdom now, but then I was doing my job and I know I acted professionally.”

Thathi arrived back in Nairobi on Monday and will be in Zambia for this weekend’s round of the Africa Rally Championships.

“We called Hamilton and Raikkonen, looked at the footage and agreed that the offence was punishable,” the Kenyan official said.

“The regulations say that there has to be a drive-through penalty.”

British newspapers

British newspapers backed Hamilton in the entire episode with The Daily Mail saying Hamilton is the “victim of a conspiracy against McLaren”, with the FIA heading a “polluted sport”.

The Daily Express said that the “puppeteers of the FIA have pulled the strings and made Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren team dance to Ferrari’s tune”, while The Daily Mirror argued that F1 is “back in the dock” and described the events in Belgium as “another tawdry episode in the sport’s history” and concluded that the “same old stench mars the sport and turns fans away” and “ruins the efforts of even the best competitors, taints the day and leaves fans wondering what exactly they are fans of.”

The Independent wrote that the events of Spa “will be long remembered as being farcical and disgraceful by all in motor racing”.

In Italy the pro-Ferrari press has defended the decision (as one would expect) but in Germany multiple World Champion Niki Lauda waded in to attack the FIA, saying that this is “the worst judgement in the history of F1” and said that it was “absolutely unacceptable” that the stewards can influence the World Championship in this fashion.