{"id":297014,"date":"2025-11-20T12:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297014\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T12:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T12:30:10","slug":"major-felipe-massa-update-amid-82million-legal-case-over-hamilton-2008-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/297014\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Felipe Massa update amid $82million legal case over Hamilton 2008 defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of Felipe Massa\u2019s lawsuit over his 2008 F1 title defeat to Lewis Hamilton can continue, London\u2019s High Court has ruled.<\/p>\n

Massa is contesting the outcome of the 2008 world championship, with the former F1 driver\u2019s long-awaited legal case beginning at the High Court in London last month.<\/p>\n

Felipe Massa seeking $82million in damages over F1 2008 title defeat<\/p>\n

Massa, who is\u00a0seeking up to $82million (\u00a360m\/\u20ac68.7m) 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.<\/p>\n

The title decider in Massa\u2019s 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 Fernando Alonso to victory.<\/p>\n

Massa, who was leading the race at the time of Piquet\u2019s accident, went on to finish a distant 13th in Singapore, with the lost points proving costly in his title battle with Hamilton.<\/p>\n

Could Felipe Massa actually win $82million legal case?<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0From Crashgate to courtroom: A deep dive into Felipe Massa\u2019s $82 million lawsuit<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Trouble in the pits: The 12 biggest pit-lane incidents in Formula 1 history<\/a><\/p>\n

Massa announced his intention to take legal proceedings against the FIA, Formula 1\u2019s commercial arm Formula One Management and former F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone \u2013 all of whom deny the claims \u2013 in 2023.<\/p>\n

It came hot on the heels of\u00a0an interview Ecclestone gave to German publication F1 Insider<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Mr Ecclestone went on to admit the sport\u2019s authorities opted to take no action at the time to protect F1 from \u201ca huge scandal\u201d, expressing his sympathy that Massa was \u201ccheated out of the title he deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massa attended a three-day pre-trial hearing in London last month as the case formally began.<\/p>\n

In a fresh update, judge Robert Jay has ruled that Massa\u2019s claims for inducement of breach of contract can continue, noting in a summary of his ruling that Massa arguably did not know he could sue until Ecclestone\u2019s interview with F1 Insider was published in 2023.<\/p>\n

However, the judge has rejected Massa\u2019s case that the FIA breached its duty to investigate and dismissed his claim for a declaration that he should have won the 2008 title.<\/p>\n

The ruling appears to have ended Massa\u2019s hopes of being retrospectively crowned the world champion of 2008, with the judge noting that\u00a0\u201cthe court cannot be asked to rewrite the outcome of the 2008 Drivers\u2019 World Championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massa reiterated his calls for \u201cjustice\u201d during a visit to the Brazilian Grand Prix earlier this month, giving an update on proceedings to Sky F1 commentator Martin Brundle on the grid at Interlagos.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old said:\u00a0\u201cLooking forward for the justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t deserve what\u2019s happened to me, to anybody, anybody that is looking for the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did what we\u2019re supposed to do with the lawyers in the court and now we wait for the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Daniel Ricciardo obstacle emerges as Max Verstappen plots F1 2026 change<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Part of Felipe Massa\u2019s lawsuit over his 2008 F1 title defeat to Lewis Hamilton can continue, London\u2019s High…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,848,813,816,818,44,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-297014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-felipe-massa","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}