August 17th 2023.
Felipe Massa retired from F1 in 2017 with 11 wins to his name, but it appears he could have claimed one more. Lawyers for Massa have begun legal action against Formula One and the FIA after being allegedly cheated out of the 2008 title, which was won by Sir Lewis Hamilton.
Massa lost that championship by a single-point to Hamilton, the first of a joint-record seven titles for the British sporting legend. But back in March, former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone claimed that it should have been the former Ferrari star who had claimed victory that year.
The controversy surrounds the infamous 2008 Singapore Grand Prix which was won by Fernando Alonso, with Hamilton finishing third and Massa 13th and out of the points. A year later it was revealed that Renault had ordered Alonso’s teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash on purpose to bring out the safety car, which strategically helped the Spaniard to victory.
Ecclestone claims that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley knew of ‘crashgate’ at the time but decided not to act in order to ‘protect the sport from a huge scandal’, and if they had spoken up they would have cancelled the results from the race and that would have made Massa champion.
Massa was left enraged by these comments and revealed in April that he was considering legal action, saying: ‘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.’
Four months later, Reuters reported that Massa’s lawyers have sent a Letter Before Claim, a required formal legal notice before court proceedings can be initiated, to F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, previously Massa’s team boss at Ferrari, and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
The letter reportedly states that Massa is the rightful 2008 Driver’s Champion, and F1 and FIA deliberately ignored the misconduct that cheated him out of that title. Massa’s lawyers added that, though he is unable to quantify his losses at this stage, they are likely to exceed tens of millions of Euros. In addition, the letter warns that, without a satisfactory response, Massa intends to pursue legal action in order to seek compensation for the harm he has suffered, as well as recognition that he would have been awarded the 2008 Championship.
Though he is seeking compensation, it does not appear Massa is looking to strip Hamilton of the 2008 title, something that would have been impossible to achieve.
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