Felipe Massa, who has experienced bitter disappointment, wants justice.
Felipe Massa lost the 2008 World Championship title in memorable fashion. Zumawire / MVPhotos
Lost the 2008 Formula One world championship Felipe Massa says that he will find out the possibility of winning that season 15 years later.
Massa tells Autosport that he is investigating through the courts the possibility of rejecting the results of the Singapore GP, which became the culmination point of that season.
From Crashgate the memorable race was revealed to be the biggest fraud in F1 history. The Renault team ordered its drivers Nelson Piquet junior deliberately crash into the wall so that the safety car called to the track would pick up the team mate Fernando Alonso from the rear to victory. The team’s tactics were successful, but Ferrari driver Massa paid a heavy price for the deception.
The Brazilian lost the world championship that season as a result of Renault’s result manipulation.
Massa was leading the race when the cars came to the pits for more fuel after Piquet’s exit.
In a hectic situation, Ferrari pushed Massa into motion with the fuel line still attached to the car. An unsuccessful pit stop dropped Massa from the top of the race to outside the points. WC sparring partner Lewis Hamilton finished third in the race.
At the end of the season, Massa lost the World Championship title to Hamilton by only one point. The championship ended dramatically. The Brazilian, who won the final race of the season in front of his home crowd, had time to celebrate the championship for a moment, until Hamilton managed to get up in the last corner Timo Glock’s to the front and to the sixth place required by the championship.
Lewis Hamilton celebrated his first career world championship in Brazil. ZumaWire / MVPHOTOS
The fact that Alonso’s pit stop at a special time coincided with Piquet’s outing already raised questions at the time. However, the matter was forgotten until Piquet was fired the following year. The Brazilian then revealed to Fia what really happened in Singapore.
The FIA punished the management of the Renault team, but the umbrella organization did not intervene in the final results of the 2008 Singapore race.
Ecclestone knew
Nelson Piquet junior is one of the villains of the story. PDO
The matter resurfaced when the former leader of the F1 series Bernie Ecclestone recalled the aftermath of the Singapore GP from the beginning of the year to the F1-Insider website.
Ecclestone says that the management of the F1 series and FIA wanted to deal with the situation with as little controversy as possible, so that the sport’s reputation would not suffer.
Ecclestone’s choice of words in the interview denied that the sport had crossed its own rules. According to him, the results of the Singapore GP should have been rejected.
It would have meant the championship for Massa.
Ecclestone’s comments also reached Massa’s ears. He commented to Autosport that Ecclestone’s words rekindled the desire to investigate the matter again.
– Ferrari’s lawyers once investigated the matter, but they told me that nothing could be done. I believed them then. But now 15 years later, word has spread that F1 knew about the scam as early as 2008, but nothing was done about it. It is sad. If F1 had already acted correctly at that time, the results of the race would have been rejected and I would have been world champion, Massa stated.
Massa says that he will find out if it is possible to change the events of 15 years ago.
– Money is not the main thing here. I think about justice. The only correct decision to get justice is to cancel the results of the Singapore GP.