Jody Scheckter: Officials Biased Against Lewis Hamilton

Jody Scheckten, Former F1 Champion, has accused the FIA race officials of being biased against Lewis Hamilton during the 2008 season.

Many of the penalties handed to the twenty-three year old Brit this season have caused uproar, and none more so than the post-race demotion that cost him victory at Spa.  Had he been allowed to keep the victory, Hamilton would have already clinched the WDC.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Scheckten said, "I think he's competing against the other drivers and the FIA, it looks like."

The 1979 World Champion continued on to say, "I must say I don't like the way the rules are being run.  I don't think it's uniform, I don't think it's fair, in fact I think it's disgraceful.  I think him they've treated him so unfairly—whether it's Lewis, whether it's McLaren or whether it's pro-Ferrari, I think whatever it is, it's been terrible."

Th South-African, who had a fairly dramatic start to his F1 career, had nothing but praise for the young McLaren driver and was in awe of his success' over his premier two seasons.

"I think he's been amazing since he's come into Formula 1," he said.

"Last year he should have won the world championship, and this year he should have won it a little while ago.  I think if you compare him against my record, he's showing a lot of maturity."

Commenting on this weekends race, Jody said, although Hamilton has a nice seven point cushion going into the race that he just continue to prevail and believes that conservative play, although the better option, would be more difficult than going for the flat-out win.

"I think it is much easier for Massa, he's just got to go out, drive it hard and win the race," said Scheckter.

"That's his job, and it's fairly simple in that way.  It's very difficult to get a balance between going aggressively and not going aggressively enough.  You can get into as much trouble by trying to be careful, because people hit you in the back," he continued on to say.

"It is difficult when you're in the front to try and get that right balance.  I think  that Lewis has got to do is just play it safe.  If it's raining he must run wet tyres and not take a chance."

"If the tyres are wearing out he needs to come in.  If he does half of his performance that he's done over the last year, then he should win it quite easily, but you never know with Formula 1."

We've heard many sides to the story concerning the FIA bias this season.  Without a shadow of a doubt, I think every F1 fan would admit that, at very least, they have been inconsistent.  Whether they have been fair or not is not up to me to say- I have my suspicions, just as you will.

All we can hope for this weekend, is that the title is won on the track and not in an office, and that it is won fairly and because of driver skill.

The worst possible case is one of the drivers winning on the track, and then within hours being penalized and losing the title.  Whichever way you look at it, Lewis does appear to have the advantage going into the deciding race, but as we all know, F1 isn't always black and white—and is very often, red!