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Hamilton 'may be negative for F1'
Motorsport boss Max Mosley has said Lewis Hamilton could have a negative effect on Formula One if he is as successful next year as he was in 2007.
"If he does the same thing next season as he's done this season, it will certainly have a big effect," he said.
"It will start to be negative because we'll get the Schumacher effect where people start writing to me saying can't you do something to slow him down."
Mosley added that Hamilton's role in revitalising F1 had been exaggerated.
"He has certainly helped enormously in the UK," said Mosley, the president of governing body the FIA, in an interview with the BBC's Hardtalk programme.
"He's also got a lot of interest worldwide because he's come manifestly not from a rich background. He's just made it.
"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, would suddenly be the big one.
It would be surprising if Hamilton didn't know something of what was going on [in spy-gate], but I've got absolutely no evidence that he had
Max Mosley (above)
"So I think there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of Lewis Hamilton."
Mosley added that it was "very unlikely" that Hamilton would be installed as champion following a hearing next month into the results of the season-closing Brazilian Grand Prix.
McLaren have appealed against the decision not to punish the Williams and BMW Sauber teams for having fuel that was too cold.
If McLaren are successful in having their three points-scoring drivers excluded, Hamilton could be moved up in the results to fourth, giving him enough points to displace Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen as world champion.
But Mosley said: "It could happen, absolutely, because this will go to a court of appeal.
"It consists of very senior lawyers who are not connected with any of the countries involved in the events, so not Britain, not Italy and so on. It's an independent court. It can decide.
"That said, it's very unlikely, because even if they excluded those cars they are not obliged to reclassify Hamilton. There's absolutely no need, if they don't wish to, to change the position that Hamilton was in."
Mosley described the 2007 season as "very positive, on the whole", despite the controversies that plagued the sport, because "although the behind-the-scenes stuff was annoying for us and the people concerned, for the public it really adds to the general interest".
One of those controversies was the "spy-gate" saga, when Hamilton's McLaren team were fined $100m (