Jan.15 (GMM) Damon Hill fears that McLaren and Britain's Lewis Hamilton will be unable to challenge for the 2008 world championship.

The 1996 title winner, who today is president of the British Racing Drivers' Club, said Ron Dennis' Mercedes-powered team is "being made to fight with one arm tied behind their back" in the after-effects of the espionage scandals of 2007.

Woking based McLaren was fined $100m by the FIA last year for possessing secret Ferrari information, before self-imposing a moratorium on certain aspects of development of its newly launched car, the MP4-23.

Hill, 47, said he believed McLaren had been "obliged" to agree to the development freezes, presumably in a bid to simply move on.

But he also observed to Nuts magazine: "Even when they had everything going for them last year, they lost the championship -- I find it hard to see how this year's winner is going to be anything other than a Ferrari."

Knowing the experience of narrowly failing to win F1 titles, however - as he did in 1994 when he lost in a controversial battle with Michael Schumacher - Hill thinks Hamilton will have no problem with motivation this season.

"Getting so close, and losing, whetted my appetite and made winning all the more appealing," he told the Mail on Sunday.

"I think Lewis will be similarly driven."

Hill also thinks Ferrari has been unscathed by the 'Stepneygate' affair, despite the Italian team's widely reported anger about the airing of its secrets, and the ongoing court litigations in Britain and Italy.

"Ferrari acted aggrieved but their budgets and their reputation have been unaffected," the Englishman said.

"From a morale point of view, they have also made the transition from the Michael Schumacher era," he added.