Felipe Massa lost the 2008 Formula 1 Championship to Lewis Hamilton by a point, and insists that season’s Singapore Grand Prix crashgate is the reason.
The 2008 Singapore Grand Prix will go down in F1 history as one of the most infamous races of the sport, where it transpired that then Renault boss Flavio Briatore and his Technical Director at the time, Pat Symonds, were implicated in team orders, commanding their driver that season Nelson Piquet Jr. of crashing deliberately to bring out a Safety Car and help the team’s other driver Fernando Alonso to win the race.
A botched Ferrari pitstop under the Safety Car meant Felipe Massa finished 13th while Lewis Hamilton took third meaning, with the one point that decided the 2008 F1 Championship, that the Brazilian would have been crowned Champion had the Singapore Grand Prix result been cancelled.
Briatore and Symonds were banned from F1, the latter having the ban lifted later, joined Formula 1’s Motorsport management team alongside Ross Brawn, playing a pivotal role in the new generation of F1 cars with ground effect that are now in their second year in the sport.
Nelson Piquet was fired from Renault in 2009, and blew the whistle on the scandal as a result.
Bernie Ecclestone opens a can of worms
However, a recent statement by former F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone have triggered Massa to try and take legal action in order to overturn the result of the 2008 season, keeping in mind that he tried to do that at the time, but the results were formalized after the FIA Awards’ ceremony was completed, as the rules of the sport speculated.
Ecclestone recently told F1 Insider that he knew, along with FIA president of the time and ally Max Mosely that something was off in 2008.
“We decided not to do anything for now,” Ecclestone said. “We wanted to protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal. That’s why I used angelic tongues to persuade my former driver Nelson Piquet to keep calm for the time being.
“Back then, there was a rule that a world championship classification after the FIA awards ceremony at the end of the year was untouchable. So Hamilton was presented with the trophy and everything was fine.
“We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions.
“That means it would never have happened for the championship standings. And then Felipe Massa would have become world champion and not Lewis Hamilton,” the former F1 boss concluded.
Based on that, Massa spoke to Motorsport.com about the matter; he said: “There is a rule that says that when a championship is decided, from the moment the driver receives the champion’s trophy, things can no longer be changed, even if it has been proven a theft.
“At the time, Ferrari’s lawyers told me about this rule. We went to other lawyers and the answer was that nothing could be done. So I logically believed in this situation.
“But after 15 years, we hear that the [former] owner of the category says that he found out in 2008, together with the president of the FIA, and they did nothing [so as] to not tarnish the name of F1.
Massa the one who lost out the most, and it’s not about the money
“This is very sad, to know the result of this race was supposed to be cancelled and I would have a title. In the end, I was the one who lost the most with this result.
“So, we are going after it to understand all this,” the Former Ferrari and Williams driver maintained.
Massa, now 41, admits that this might be a long shot, but will try to see how any legal action might be viable; he said: “There are rules, and there are many things that, depending on the country, you cannot go back after 15 years to resolve a situation.
“But I intend to study the situation; study what the laws say, and the rules. We have to have an idea of what is possible to do.
“I would never go after it thinking financially,” Massa insisted. “I would go after it thinking about justice. I think if you’ve been punished for something that wasn’t your fault, and it’s the product of a robbery, a stolen race, justice has to be served.
“In fact, the right situation is to cancel the result of that race. It is the only justice that can be done in a case like this,” the winner of 11 grands prix insisted.
Asked of his former Ferrari team are in the loop on this subject Massa said: “Not yet.”