Lewis Hamilton boost as Felipe Massa faces difficult legal fight for F1 title
Emerson Fittipaldi admits his fellow Brazilian Felipe Massa will find it "so difficult" to be successful in his legal challenge against the result of the 2008 Formula 1 world championship.
It was the year in which Lewis Hamilton secured his maiden title in dramatic circumstances. Massa had finished the Brazilian Grand Prix finale believing he had won the championship, but problems further back for Timo Glock allowed Hamilton to overtake in the final few corners and earn enough points to snatch the trophy from the home hero.
Massa is looking at ways to challenge the result 15 years on, in the wake of comments made by former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. The focus of those enquiries is on that season's Singapore Grand Prix – infamous for the 'Crashgate' scandal, which began when Nelson Piquet Jr alleged the following year that he had been told by his Renault team to deliberately cause a collision.
Ecclestone recently made the revelation that he and then-FIA chief Max Mosley had been aware of the allegations in 2008 but did not act at the time. Massa is exploring whether this new fact can be used as the basis for a new legal challenge to get the result of the Singapore race erased from history – which would change the outcome of the championship in his favour.
"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, to not tarnish the name of F1," said the Brazilian earlier this month. "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.
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"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."
Bernie Ecclestone recently admitted he knew about Crashgate in 2008 (Getty Images)Autosport reported this week that Massa has since assembled a legal team with the purpose of doing exactly that. As a result, the racer will no longer be making any public statements about the situation while his lawyers work on the case behind the scenes.
Regardless of their efforts, it seems unlikely that there will be any viable legal routes for Massa to take in order to challenge the result of a race from more than a decade ago. Fittipaldi, himself a double F1 world champion, is fully supportive of his compatriot – but also doubts his chances of success.
When asked by Mirror Sport for his thoughts on the situation, the 76-year-old said: "I think who started this was Bernie Ecclestone. Typical Bernie! Bernie wanted to create a polemic and this polemic that he's creating, it's just to generate some news.
Emerson Fittipaldi thinks it will be very difficult for Felipe Massa to win his legal challenge (Getty Images for Laureus)"I would love if Felipe would be world champion, being Brazilian, for sure. I was in Interlagos that year inside the McLaren pit with Lewis Hamilton. And when Felipe went by only two people, myself and my wife, stood up and screamed.
"Everybody was quiet. 15 seconds later, everybody stood up and started screaming and I didn't understand why! But, anyway, that was the day that happened.
"When you go backwards, in that race [the Singapore GP], Ferrari made a mistake during a pit stop. That means the result of the race would not change a lot. It's so difficult to reverse that. That's my personal opinion. I am 100 per cent pro Felipe Massa, for sure."
Interview with Emerson Fittipaldi courtesy of My Betting Sites.
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