Felipe Massa told at court his own mistakes cost him 2008 F1 title
Defendants for Bernie Ecclestone, F1 and the FIA have torn into Felipe Massa's 2008 world title claims.
Ex-Ferrari F1 driver Felipe Massa has been told that his own mistakes, not the ‘Crashgate’ scandal, cost him the 2008 world title.
Massa’s legal action against Formula One Management, former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, and governing body the FIA began on Wednesday at the High Court in London.
On the opening day of a three-day hearing, Ecclestone’s lawyer David Quest told the court that Massa “performed very poorly” at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, according to BBC Sport.
The race was marred by controversy after Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed to cause a Safety Car which helped teammate Fernando Alonso win the race.
Massa took action after Ecclestone admitted in an interview to F1-Insider in 2023 that he and then FIA president Max Mosley were aware that Piquet crashed on purpose, but took no action to protect F1’s image.
Quest said that the 95-year-old billionaire “does not remember giving this interview”. Ecclestone had previously claimed he had been mistranslated.
Massa is seeking £64m in damages, insisting that an earlier investigation would have seen the race canceled, resulting in him becoming the world champion.
The Brazilian lost out on the 2008 world title to Lewis Hamilton by a single point at the final race of the season, after the then McLaren driver overtook Timo Glock for fifth place on the last corner of the final lap.
Massa told his case will fail
Quest said that Massa’s claims "are a misguided attempt to reopen the results of the 2008 F1 Drivers' Championship”.
"Mr Massa argues that, but for the FIA's handling of the crash, he would have won the Drivers' Championship," he continued.
"These declarations treat the court as a sports 'debating club', asking it to embark upon a counterfactual exercise concerning the 'refereeing' of a sporting event which took place nearly 17 years ago.”
Ecclestone’s lawyer argued that Hamilton was “equally exposed to the crash”.
The FIA’s legal representative, John Mehrzad KC, said Massa’s legal action is "torturous as it is overly ambitious” and "conspicuously overlooks a catalogue of his own errors”.
Meanwhile, Anneliese Day KC, working on behalf of FOM, said in written submissions that the claim "will fail”.
"In truth, it was not the deployment of the safety car which changed the course of history for Mr Massa, but rather a series of subsequent racing errors by him and his team during the remaining 47 laps of the race,” she continued.
"The simple fact is that over the course of both the Singapore Grand Prix and across the 2008 season, Mr Hamilton outperformed Mr Massa and everyone else."
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