Damon Hill to be race steward

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) said at the Bahrain season-opener that Damon Hill would be one of the stewards at the Monaco Grand Prix in May as well as at least one other race.

The Briton, 49, world champion with Williams in 1996 after some epic and highly controversial battles with German Schumacher, assured Reuters on Saturday he would be impartial.

"There are more important things than individual relationships. The important thing is the sport, and that the sport has got credibility," he said at the Sakhir circuit where seven-times champion Schumacher is making his comeback with Mercedes.

"If judgments are made, and which are perceived to be glaringly unbalanced, then it damages the sport, so we have to avoid that.

"The people have to make decisions based on the analysis of right and wrong, irrespective of who those people might be," he added. "I think I'm sufficiently distanced from it."