Formula One Management, the FIA and former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone have all been taken to the High Court by former driver Felipe Massa who claims he is the rightful 2008 drivers’ champion
Felipe Massa has been told by lawyers for Formula One Management and the FIA that his “overly ambitious” £64million legal action over the 2008 championship “will fail”. The former Ferrari driver is seeking damages having accused F1, the FIA and former supremo Bernie Ecclestone of breach of contract or duty.
Massa was alerted in 2023 to comments made by Ecclestone, now 95, regarding the 2008 ‘Crashgate’ scandal. Renault were found to have ordered Nelson Piquet Jr to crash at that season’s Singapore Grand Prix to benefit team-mate Fernando Alonso.
That did not emerge publicly until the following year but, in that 2023 interview, Ecclestone suggested he and then-FIA president Max Mosley knew what had happened before the end of 2008.
Several months later, Ecclestone said in a separate interview: “I don’t remember any of this, to be honest. I don’t remember giving the interview, for sure.”
Massa, who went on to lose the title by one point to Lewis Hamilton, believes he is the rightful champion as a result of Ecclestone’s comments. He wants that assertion recognised and is also suing for substantial financial compensation, claiming loss of earnings and sponsorship cash.
But at the High Court on Wednesday, lawyers for the defendants argued that the case should be thrown out. In written submissions, Mr Ecclestone’s lawyer David Quest KC said Massa’s claims “are a misguided attempt to reopen the results of the 2008 F1 Drivers’ Championship”.
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He added: “Mr Massa argues that, but for the FIA’s handling of the crash, he would have won the drivers’ championship. 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.”
Mr Quest continued that Massa’s claim would “deprive Mr Hamilton of his 2008 title” despite the Brit being “equally exposed to the crash”. John Mehrzad KC, for the FIA, said Massa’s claim is “torturous as it is overly ambitious” and “conspicuously overlooks a catalogue of his own errors”. And Anneliese Day KC, for Formula One Management, said in written submissions that the claim “will fail”.
Ms Day added: “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. 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.”
But Nick De Marco KC, for Massa, said in written submissions that the defendants “cannot establish that Mr Massa’s claims have no real prospect of success” and added: “Mr Massa has a real prospect of succeeding on all of the grounds.”
The hearing before Mr Justice Jay is due to conclude on Friday, with a ruling likely at a later date.
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