Formula One 2023: Felipe Massa threatens legal action over Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 world title

A 15 year-old controversy is threatening to bubble up again as a former Ferrari driver speaks out over the scandal that he believes cost him the 2008 drivers’ championship.

Felipe Masa

One of the biggest scandals in Formula One history is set to resurface with Lewis Hamilton’s claim to the 2008 World Championship soon to be tested by a scorned former Ferrari rival.

Felipe Massa has revealed he could pursue legal avenues in the wake of former F1 owner Bernie Ecclestone’s recent comments that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley knew of the controversy around Fernando Alonso’s 2008 Singapore Grand Prix victory before it was made public knowledge, but chose not to act so as to “protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal”.

Felipe Masa reacts after winning the final race of the 2008 season but losing the drivers’ championship.

Ecclestone’s comments were in relation to Alonso’s breakthrough victory that season, where he was the key beneficiary of Renault teammate Nelson Piquet Jr’s crash.

A year later the Brazilian driver, having been dropped by Renault, revealed he had been told by team bosses to purposely crash so that Alonso, who had pitted for fresh tyres only a few laps earlier, could take the lead of the race.

Ferrari driver Massa had been leading up to that point, but fell down the order after a botched pit stop in which a fuel hose remained connected to his car as he drove away.

Massa would finish the race in 13th while his main title rival Hamilton came home in third, behind Alonso and Nico Rosberg.

The Ferrari driver went on to finish runner-up to Hamilton by a single point in the drivers’ standings – the Singapore Grand Prix, in his mind, a key reason for his narrow defeat.

Only the following season did Piquet Jr, now no longer at Renault, come forward and claim he had been told by the team to purposely crash.

Former owner of Formula One Bernie Ecclestone revealed that he knew about the controversy surrounding the 2008 drivers’ championship. Picture: AP Photo/Alastair Grant

Had Renault and Piquet Jr’s actions been known prior to the end of the 2008 season, the Singapore Grand Prix result would have been cancelled under FIA statutes.

The resulting six-point swing would have installed Massa as that season’s world champion ahead of Hamilton.

But under F1’s rules at the time, once a world champion had been officially crowned at the FIA awards ceremony that title was unable to be stripped.

Hence, Ecclestone’s recent comments where he admitted he “used angelic tongues to persuade my former driver Nelson Piquet to keep calm for the time being.”

“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 told Motorsport.com.

“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.

“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.”

Felipe Masa finished second to Lewis Hamilton in the 2008 championship. Picture: AFP PHOTO / JOHN THYS

Massa competed in F1 for 15 seasons, winning 11 races and earning 41 podiums, though the closest he came to a world championship was in 2008.

The Brazilian said if he did pursue legal options he would do so “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,” he said.

“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.

“We have already seen other situations happening in sports, such as Lance Armstrong, who was proven to have doped, and he lost all the titles. What is the difference?”

Originally published as Formula One 2023: Felipe Massa threatens legal action over Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 world title