Massa takes legal action against F1 over lost 2008 world title

Former Ferrari driver Felipe Massa filed a lawsuit against Formula One in London’s High Court on Monday seeking damages for missing out on the 2008 world championship title.

Brazilian Massa, 42, lost out to Lewis Hamilton by just a single point in a season where the sport was rocked by the “crashgate” scandal at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Renault staged a win for Fernando Alonso by ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to crash in their other car.

Ferrari’s Massa, leading at the time of Piquet’s smash, finished 13th, before losing the championship by the finest of margins.

Piquet revealed the following season that he was under instruction by his bosses to deliberately crash.

Massa has also brought proceedings against governing body the FIA, and the sport’s former supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

He is reportedly seeking £62 million ($80 million) in damages to reflect the difference in salary, as well as sponsorship and commercial opportunities he would have received as a world champion.

Ecclestone confessed in an interview last year that according to the rules, the results from Singapore race should not have stood for the championship standings and as a result, Massa would have been declared champion. 

“Mr. Massa is seeking declarations that the FIA breached its regulations by failing to promptly investigate Nelson Piquet Junior’s crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, and that had it acted properly, Mr. Massa would have won the drivers’ championship that year,” said a statement from Massa’s lawyers.

“Mr. Massa also seeks damages for the significant financial loss he has suffered due to the FIA’s failure, in which Mr. Ecclestone and FOM (Formula One Management) were also complicit.”

The 2008 title was Hamilton’s first world championship and he has since gone on to match Michael Schumacher’s record of seven world drivers’ titles.

“If that’s the direction that Felipe wants to go, that’s his decision. I prefer not to focus on the past,” said Hamilton when quizzed on the matter last September.

Massa did not win another F1 race after 2008 and suffered a near-fatal head injury at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix.

However, he returned to the sport and continued racing with Ferrari and then Williams until 2017.