Massa wants support from Ferrari and Piquet for reparation in F1 – 04/05/2023 – Sports

Felipe Massa’s feeling was similar to a hard crash. “It was a scare. I took a hit”, says the pilot to the Sheet about the moment he became aware of Bernie Ecclestone’s statements.

It was difficult for the Brazilian to hear from the former F1 boss himself that both he and Max Mosley, former president of the FIA ​​(International Automobile Federation), learned of the scandal at the Singapore GP before the end of the 2008 season and acted to stifle it. the case under the excuse of protecting the image of the World Cup.

Ecclestone admitted the conduct in a recent interview with the German website F1 Insider, for which he stated that he does not consider Lewis Hamilton as a seven-time champion because the 2008 title had a “stolen race”.

“This is very serious”, says Massa, who sees in the former leader’s statement a “new fact” to try to reopen the case in court.

There is, however, no easy way to do this. The FIA’s International Sporting Code states that the time limit for contesting a result expires 14 calendar days after a competition.

“That deadline has already passed many years ago. The motorist, however, can try to make the questioning under the argument that the facts became public recently”, says Mariana Chamelette, attorney of the Court of Sports Justice of the Soccer of São Paulo.

Vice-president of the Brazilian Institute of Sports Law, she also recalls that the FIA ​​judicial system indicates an independent International Court of Appeal as the highest authority to take any decision, which limits, for example, the performance of the Court of Arbitration for Sport .

“Since the FIA ​​statute restricts the role of CAS in cases judged by its anti-doping disciplinary committee, the Arbitration Court does not have jurisdiction over the case”, says Chamelette.

In 2009, when the case became public, Massa did not activate a personal legal team and, according to him, it was up to the lawyers of his then team, Ferrari, to try to change the result of the championship.

“I trusted them,” he recalls. At the time, he was informed that there was a rule according to which the world championship classification was untouchable after the FIA ​​awards ceremony. The event took place in November 2008.

Now, the Brazilian hopes that the Italian team will help him again in his search for a satisfactory “reparation”, such as being declared champion of that year or, at least, sharing the title with Hamilton.

“I really expect support from Ferrari in this case because the title is as a driver, but Ferrari, Italy, the fans are all in the same boat”, says the driver. According to him, there has been no contact with the team yet.

For now, he says he has received support from professional colleagues. Without naming names, he says that many riders sent messages to him after Ecclestone’s statements.

Massa also hopes for public support from important figures in Brazilian motorsport. And he does not even rule out the support of three-time champion Nelson Piquet, father of Nelsinho Piquet, pivot of the scandal at the Singapore GP.

“Any support is welcome”, he says, not forgetting the hurt he has for Nelsinho. “There were a lot of things wrong with Nelsinho. And only when he was sent away [da Renault] he decided to talk”, he remembers.

“I went to ask him, at the beginning of 2009, if he had done that on purpose, because they already commented on that, and he said no”, he adds.

In 2008, however, Nelsinho collided on purpose during the stage at the Marina Bay circuit to benefit his then teammate, the Spaniard Fernando Alonso.

When hitting the wall, he followed orders from his boss at Renault Flavio Briatore and engineer Pat Symonds, as he said in his testimony to the FIA ​​(International Automobile Federation).

Massa was leading the race at the time of the crash and, indirectly, ended up being harmed. As the race management triggered the yellow flag, Ferrari called him to the pits, but released him to return to the track without removing the refueling hose. The Brazilian ended up being punished and ended the race in 13th.

That year, he disputed the title point by point with the Englishman Lewis Hamilton, then at McLaren. The Englishman came third in Singapore and took the title in the last stage, in Brazil, by a difference of just one point.

For Massa, there is a direct relationship between the loss of that championship, 15 years ago, with the current hiatus of Brazilians in F1. Since 2017, when the Paulista himself left the category, Brazil has not had a titleholder in the category.

“We start to think what this means not only for me, but what it means for the country, for motorsport, for driver training. We know how much [Ayrton] Senna was important,” he says. “In the end, you just ask yourself ‘Was it fair?'”