Lewis Hamilton title in danger as Felipe Massa releases new defiant statement
Lewis Hamilton shows off his impressive surfing skills
Felipe Massa has vowed to keep ‘fighting to the end’ in his bid to strip Lewis Hamilton of the Drivers’ Championship title he won by a single point in 2008. The Brazilian driver missed out on the honours at the final race of the season but is now a firm believer that he was unfairly cheated out of the title by the FIA.
Earlier in the campaign, Massa saw a victory taken away from him at the Singapore Grand Prix as Fernando Alonso claimed his only win of the season. It was later found that Renault had ordered the Spaniard’s team-mate, Nelson Piquet Jr, to crash on purpose in order to bring out the safety car.
The incident sparked the ‘crashgate’ scandal, which ended up transpiring into one of the biggest controversies in the sport’s history. It reared its ugly head again back in April when former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone revealed that he knew about the conspiracy before admitting that the result in Singapore should have been voided. However, Ecclestone has since retracted the statement and insisted that he was not aware of any conspiracy.
Massa responded by announcing he would be fighting a legal case to get the 2008 title overturned and has since insisted that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
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“They robbed me, for sure,” he told Brazilian outlet Infobae as part of a wide-ranging interview. “It was a perfect championship, which ended by one point at Interlagos. But later we saw that there was a rigged race [in Singapore] and the result should have been cancelled.
“They didn’t do it because they didn’t want to destroy the name of F1. Bernie Ecclestone said in an interview that the 2008 championship is mine for him and that the race in Singapore should be cancelled. They did not do it and they knew in 2008 of the manipulation.
“For me it was a very difficult situation. We prepared a large legal team with lawyers from six countries. We are going to fight until the end because what happened was not fair for the sport, for me, for my country, for the fans, for Ferrari.”
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Massa went on to explain that he and his legal team, who are vastly experienced in the field of sporting disputes, are still waiting on a formal response from the FIA. He also suggested that he could seek financial compensation from the governing body but insisted that he is primarily fighting the case for sporting reasons.
“They are people who worked for a long time on cases like this,” added Massa. “It is a case of manipulation. We have to work for justice in sports. We will see the response they give us and if we are going to go to court or a tribunal, that is something we have to decide.
“Surely in the fight there is money to claim, but I base the claim on the championship. The trophy is the most important thing for me.”
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