Felipe Massa Sues FIA, Ecclestone, and FOM over 2008 Championship

Former Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa, who considers himself the moral victor of the 2008 drivers' championship which went to Lewis Hamilton, has today filed a lawsuit at the High Court of Justice in London naming the FIA, former F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone, and Formula One Management as defendants. Massa's lawyers state in a note that he "requests a declaration that the FIA violated its regulations by not promptly investigating the incident involving Nelson Piquet Junior at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix and that, had it acted appropriately, Mr. Massa would have won the drivers' world championship that year." Massa, the lawyers reveal, "also seeks compensation for the significant financial loss caused by the FIA, with Mr. Ecclestone and the FOM also being complicit." According to the media, Massa is asking for 80 million dollars in compensation to make up for the loss of salary and commercial contracts that the world champion title would have earned him. The 2008 title, the first of seven won by Hamilton, was decided by a narrow margin, with the Brazilian finishing just one point behind the Briton. However, Massa believes he was wronged during the Singapore Grand Prix, the 15th of the 18 races scheduled that year, won by Spanish driver Fernando Alonso (Renault). The Brazilian claims that, to favor Alonso's victory, his team ordered his second driver, Nelson Piquet Jr, to deliberately leave the track and crash into a wall. Alonso, only 15th on the grid, had just refueled at the time of the incident, and the intervention of the safety car allowed him to overtake all the other drivers, who then took their turn in the pits. Massa, who was leading the race at the time of the incident, had a nightmare pit stop, restarting with the fuel hose still attached to his car. He finished in 13th place while Hamilton, third, gained valuable points towards the title. In the following season, Nelson Piquet Jr revealed that he had deliberately crashed his car on his team's instructions. Bernie Ecclestone, the head of F1 at the time, admitted in an interview last year that the results of the Singapore GP should not have been validated and that the world championship should have gone to the Brazilian.