Felipe Massa's claim to be 2008 F1 champion: how Crashgate led to court battle

“Attempts to find an amicable resolution have been unsuccessful, leaving Mr Massa with no choice but to initiate legal proceedings,” said Vieira Rezende, one of the legal firms involved in the claim, in a statement.

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

The dry legal language masks the radical nature of the case. Never before has an F1 world championship result been overturned 16 years after the race, nor a race result been annulled. Sporting regulations have not been tested in civil courts, and neither have they had to rule on the value of winning a Formula 1 World Championship.

Documents filed in the High Court and seen by Motor Sport reveal that the case leans on both British and French contract law, alleging breach of contract and a conspiracy to deny Massa the title. But these are the hurdles that Massa’s lawyers believe they can scale.

Here’s the full story of the case so far.

How much is Massa claiming?

Massa’s claim includes a list of losses and damages said to have been caused by failing to win the 2008 championship, totalling £64m.

This includes a €2m (£1.7m) bonus that he would have received from Ferrari for winning the drivers’ championship.

The rest is made up of the “difference between the salary Mr Massa earned for the remainder of his career in Formula 1 and the salary that Mr Massa would have negotiated and received as Formula 1 champion” as well as additional sponsorship and commercial opportunities that Massa would have received as F1 champion.

Lawyers have asked for interest to be added to these damages as well.

In addition, Massa has asked for a declaration that the FIA breached its regulations by “failing to investigate the circumstances of the crash promptly in 2008”.

He is also seeking: “A declaration that if the FIA had not acted in breach of its own regulations, it would have cancelled or adjusted the results of the Singapore Grand Prix with the consequence that Mr Massa would have won the Drivers’ Championship in 2008.”

How Massa lost the 2008 championship

The 2008 Formula 1 season came with a Hollywood ending, as Massa was pipped to the title in front of his home crowd after Hamilton’s last-gasp overtake.

But it’s arguable it should never have happened. Three races earlier, he had been leading the Singapore Grand Prix when, under team orders, Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed his Renault, which predictably brought out the safety car.

It was timed to benefit his team-mate Fernando Alonso who duly went on to win the race but also led to most of the grid heading into the pits at the same time to change tyres and refuel. In the rush, Massa was given the green light to leave with his fuel hose still attached. After a chaotic recovery by the pit crew, He rejoined the race last and finished out of the points, while Hamilton was third.

Without that incident, Massa may well have gone on to win the race. Had the rest of the season progressed in the same way — a big if — he would then have become champion.

But the Crashgate scandal unravelled too late. Although there were instant suspicions that Piquet’s crash was too convenient, it wasn’t until the following year that the story became public when Piquet confessed to his role, after a rift with Renault.

The team and senior officials were penalised but the 2008 results were left untouched, in line with regulations from racing’s governing body, the FIA. Teams have two weeks to appeal results after each race and — in any case — lose the right to appeal results four days before that season’s end-of-year prizegiving ceremony.

Bernie Ecclestone’s comments that sparked Massa’s legal case

Until March last year, Felipe Massa had accepted his fate of finishing as the unfortunate runner-up in the 2008 world championship. And then Bernie Ecclestone changed the narrative.

As part of a series of interviews promoting a documentary about him, he was asked about Crashgate by the F1-Insider website. “Max Mosley [the late FIA president] and I were informed about what had happened in the race in Singapore during the 2008 season,” said Ecclestone.

“Piquet Jr had told his father Nelson [the three-time F1 champion] that he had been asked by the team to deliberately drive into the wall at a certain time in order to trigger a safety car phase and so on to help his team-mate Alonso. Piquet Jr was worried about his contract extension, so he was under a lot of pressure and agreed.”

Then came the critical phrase: “We decided not to do anything for now.”

Ecclestone went on to say that he and Mosley wanted to “protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal”.

“We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we would probably have had to cancel the race in Singapore under these conditions.”

Had the race result been annulled, Massa would have ended the season with the same 97 points, but Hamilton would have lost the six he earned for his third-place finish. He would have ended the season with 92 points.

Will Bernie Ecclestone give evidence?

Since his March interview, Ecclestone has claimed that he doesn’t remember what he said, which may affect whether the 94-year-old will give evidence in the case.

But it’s too late to derail the legal action: his earlier comments exposed a loose thread. Massa’s legal team is now pulling that thread. What unravels may change F1 history forever.

Ecclestone’s assertion that he and others covered up the deliberate crash and failed to take appropriate action have given Massa’s legal team enough cause to file the case and then to demand evidence in a process known as disclosure.

In September 2023, Massa’s legal team sent preservation notices to senior figures who were at Ferrari and the Renault team in 2008, making it an offence to destroy any relevant evidence.

In the build up to the trial, it is thought that they demanded documents, such as emails and notes from those individuals as well as the FIA, F1 and Ecclestone’s office. These demands can be enforced by the court if deemed pertinent to the case.

Within these could be a trove of revelations, potentially taking in other discussions between Mosley, Ecclestone and team bosses. That alone could make the trial fascinating.

Could the FIA have cancelled the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix?

There may not be a precedent for annulling an F1 world championship race, but we know that this was an option open to officials in 2008 thanks to a FIA-accredited kart race that took place two years earlier in France, whioch could play a key part at any trial.

The 2006 Formula A European Championship race at Varennes sur Allier was stopped but not all competitors could see the red flags. Stewards therefore annulled the results.

This resulted in a series of appeals, ending with the FIA’s international court of appeal coming to the verdict that, under the international sporting code which covers all FIA series, stewards do “have the power to annul the results of a race when it is impossible to establish a fair classification in order to avoid any unfair treatment with regard to the competitors and drivers”.

This would appear to apply to a race where the order was dramatically reshuffled by a deliberate crash.

Can the 2008 F1 championship results be changed now, years later?

The FIA denies the right to appeal after each season’s prize-giving ceremony and Massa’s lawyers are attempting to show that there was an opportunity to annul the Singapore GP results before the 2008 prize-giving ceremony.

Massa’s lawyers say that Piquet Sr had told the FIA’s then-race director Charlie Whiting about the deliberate crash at the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 2, 2008; that Whiting, who has since died, told Mosley; and that Ecclestone was also informed.

They claim that all three were aware of this before the end of November and before the prize-giving ceremony on December 12.

The lawyers are not calling for the official championship results to be changed — this may well be beyond the powers of a civil court.

Instead they are calling for the defendants to rectify the “damage” of their alleged actions by issuing: “A declaration that the FIA acted in breach of its own regulations in failing to investigate the circumstances of the Crash promptly in 2008.”

In addition, they are claiming: “A declaration that if the FIA had not acted in breach of its own regulations, it would have cancelled or adjusted the results of the Singapore Grand Prix with the consequence that Mr Massa would have won the Drivers’ Championship in 2008”

Where that would leave the 2008 results is another question: could Hamilton still be regarded as the champion if there was an admission that the wrong processes had been followed and Massa should have been crowned?

What is the legal argument?

For decades drivers and teams have accepted the judgements handed down by the FIA’s courts, despite some less than transparent rulings. Ayrton Senna was handed a six-month suspended ban from the sport after appealing a decision to disqualify him from the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix. That was the race where Alain Prost became champion having turned in on Senna, causing both to crash out. Only Senna was punished because he had restarted the race — illegally, according to the stewards.

That decision was famously cancelled out when Senna speared into Prost at the same track the following year to confirm himself as champion.

Teams have been sorely tempted to take cases to civil courts, most recently Mercedes in the aftermath of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix debacle, which saw Max Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton to the championship after race director Michael Masi reinterpreted the safety car procedure.

Breach of contract

However, the FIA’s regulations, codes and procedures don’t form part of civil law, and so Massa’s lawyers argue that these formed a contract between himself and the governing body, which can be tested in court.

These include the sporting code, which states that the FIA would exercise its power “in a fair and equitable manner” and that it will “never be enforced so as to prevent or impede a competition or the participation of a competitor”.

The FIA’s sporting regulations prohibit “Any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally”.

In a particulars of claim document, submitted by the High Court, Massa’s lawyers argue: “The FIA was contractually obliged under its own regulations promptly to investigate allegations of serious wrongdoing, such as a deliberate crash at the Singapore Grand Prix” and say that the FIA failed to do so.

Ecclestone and FOM are accused of inducing breach of contract for allegedly deciding to “conceal the information” about the deliberate crash.

Conspiracy

The actions of the three defendants are also alleged to be a conspiracy “to use unlawful means with an intention of causing harm to Mr Massa”.

The allegations are similar on this count, with the FIA, FOM and Ecclestone accused of conspiring to induce breach of contract or breach their contract. If proven, the court may award greater damages than for just the breach of contract counts.

Will other results be challenged?

If Massa’s case shows that alleged failings by F1 and the FIA can be challenged in a civil court using contract law, then it could open up a new avenue for teams and drivers to fight decisions in the future as well as the past.

One clear candidate is the 2021 championship decider between Hamilton and Verstappen at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Hamilton had led most of the race when Nicholas Latifi crashed and a late safety car was called. It gave Verstappen the opportunity to change tyres without the risk of losing a position; Hamilton did it have that luxury.

It shouldn’t have mattered because there wasn’t enough time to clear the crash and follow the usual procedure to end the safety car period before the end of the race.

However, the FIA has admitted that race director Masi “called the safety car back into the pitlane without it having completed an additional lap as required by the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations”

This almost inevitably allowed the fresh-tyred Verstappen to pass Hamilton for the lead and the world championship.

This could be the basis for a claim on similar grounds to Massa’s — particularly if doubt is cast over Hamilton’s first title as a result of the court case.

Elsewhere the Senna and Prost clashes of 1989 and 1990 could attract legal argument, as could the final race of 1994 where Michael Schumacher turned into Damon Hill, ending the Williams driver’s hopes of the title. However, with all three of these championships, it’s not clear whether any of the parties would have the appetite for a legal battle.