Ex-Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa is pressing on with his pursuit to have the 2008 World Championship overturned, following comments made by former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone regarding that season’s Singapore Grand Prix.
At the Marina Bay Circuit in 2008, Renault purposefully had Nelson Piquet Jr. crash, resulting in a Safety Car which effectively helped team-mate Fernando Alonso win the race.
That incident has since become known as ‘Crashgate’, with Renault having been awarded a two-year suspended ban in 2009.
It took an entire year for the incident to become public, with Massa having looked into whether he could have the results from the Singapore GP overturned, given that it was rigged by Renault.
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Had the results from Singapore been voided, then Massa would’ve become the 2008 World Champion, not Lewis Hamilton.
“I spoke about it at the time with Ferrari and with the team’s lawyers at Maranello and they told me that there was nothing they could do,” Massa said earlier this year, as reported by Grandpx.news.
Recent comments from Ecclestone, though, have resulted in Massa considering legal action once again into the 2008 season, with the former F1 supremo having admitted that he knew about ‘Crashgate’ before it was announced by the FIA and the World Motor Sport Council in 2009.
“Back then, there was a rule that a world championship classification was untouchable after the FIA awards ceremony at the end of the year,” Ecclestone said.
“So Hamilton was presented with the cup and everything was fine.”
As a result of Ecclestone having admitted that himself and former FIA president Max Mosley knew about the incident, Massa is pursuing with his attempt to have the 2008 Singapore GP overturned, with the help of a legal team.
The former Ferrari driver believes he was “totally wronged” and that he has every “right to fight for justice”, something which cannot be argued given the recent comments.
“In other sports, titles have been revoked when things like this have been discovered, so why not in F1?” he said.
“After Bernie Ecclestone spoke about it, we are trying to understand – legally – if there is any chance of looking at it again,” Massa told the Brazilian publication Esportelandia.
“Bernie said that he and the president of the FIA in 2008 and everyone else knew and didn’t want to do anything about it so the Formula 1 name was not hurt,” he added.
“I was totally wronged by what happened in a stolen race. What Bernie said made me lift my antenna and go after justice.
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“I’m not a lawyer, but everyone knows I was clearly wronged and I think I am right to fight for justice to make it right.
“It wasn’t an engine that broke down, it was a stolen race – a manipulation, which is a very serious thing. Sure, there was an engine that also broke, but that’s part of the time.
“This was a manipulation. The end of the race was completely different to what it should have been.”