Former Ferrari driver Felipe Massa has claimed the team attempted to silence him in 2009 after raising doubts over Fernando Alonso’s knowledge of the Crashgate scandal.

Massa is contesting the outcome of the 2008 world championship, with the former F1 driver’s long-awaited legal case beginning at the High Court in London earlier this week.

Felipe Massa reveals Ferrari ‘reprimand’ over Fernando Alonso Crashgate comments

Massa, who is seeking up to $82million (£60m/€68.7m) in damages, famously missed out on the 2008 title to Lewis Hamilton, then of McLaren, by a single point at the final race of the season in Brazil.

The title decider in Massa’s hometown of Sao Paulo came just weeks after the Singapore Grand Prix, the scene of the infamous Crashgate scandal, where Renault instructed its driver Nelson Piquet Jr to crash deliberately in order to help teammate Alonso to victory.

Massa, who was leading the race at the time of Piquet’s accident, went on to finish a distant 13th in Singapore with the lost points proving costly in his title battle with Hamilton.

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Massa announced his intention to take legal proceedings against the FIA, the sport’s commercial rights holder Formula One Management and former F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone – all of whom deny the claims – in 2023.

It came hot on the heels after an interview Ecclestone gave to German publication F1 Insider, in which he revealed that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley, who died in 2021, were made aware of the true circumstances behind the Singapore Grand Prix scandal during the 2008 season.

Mr Ecclestone went on to admit the sport’s authorities opted to take no action at the time to protect F1 from “a huge scandal”, expressing his sympathy that Massa was “cheated out of the title he deserved.”

Alonso spent four seasons as Massa’s teammate at Ferrari between 2010 and 2013 having replaced Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion, at the end of the 2009 season.

Alonso arrived at Ferrari after Massa, who suffered a head injury in an accident at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, claimed that year that the Spaniard was aware that Piquet’s crash at the previous season’s Singapore Grand Prix was deliberate.

Alonso, still competing in F1 with the Aston Martin team, has always maintained that he had no knowledge of Renault’s plot to fix the race, with the FIA finding no wrongdoing on his part.

In his witness statement this week, Massa claimed that he received a letter from Ferrari in late 2009 “reprimanding” him for his comments about his future teammate.

Massa went on to reveal that he “refused” to publish a statement drafted for him by Ferrari.

Massa wrote: “In October 2009 I also told journalists that I believed Fernando Alonso (the other Renault driver who won because of Nelson’s crash) knew it was on purpose.

“When Ferrari found out, GSA (the firm who handled the team’s contracts) wrote me a letter on 16 October 2009 reprimanding me about making public comments about Fernando Alonso.

“I found out before my accident in July 2009 that Alonso would drive for Ferrari in the 2010 F1 season.

“The letter was signed by Henry Peter (a Ferrari lawyer).

“Ferrari then drafted a statement for me to issue but I refused to make that statement.

“Instead, I just said that it was time to look to the future.”

Massa’s latest comments come after he reiterated his stance in 2023 that Alonso knew of Renault’s plan to fix the Singapore Grand Prix of 2008, claiming the two-time world champion always evaded “a clear conversation” whenever the subject cropped up.

He told the Brazilian edition of Motorsport.com: “I spoke to Alonso on a few occasions when we were teammates.

“Logically, Fernando always insinuated that it wasn’t his fault, but he always changed the subject. I never had a clear conversation.

“When a person accepts and talks is when that person is clear about things.

“When the person doesn’t want to talk in the right way, we know that maybe he knew everything. I’m sure he knew it.”

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