F1 ‘Crashgate’ ‘one of the biggest scandals in sports history’, says Felipe Massa’s lawyer – The New York Times

Formula 1
Massa has attended both days at the Royal Courts of Justice in London Ilyas Tayfun Salci/Anadolu via Getty Images
Felipe Massa’s lawyer today accused those responsible for protecting the integrity of Formula 1 of “deliberately conspiring together to cover up one of the biggest scandals in the history of sport.”
Nick De Marco KC, representing Massa, was speaking at the second day of the ‘Crashgate’ hearing at London’s High Court on Thursday.
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Brazilian racer Massa, who has attended both days in court, argued that he lost out on the world drivers’ championship that year because of the points he dropped when fellow former F1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed his Renault car at the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008.
Massa, who had been on pole and was then leading the race, ended up in 13th position. Piquet Jr’s Renault teammate Fernando Alonso, who had pitted early, won the race. Massa, now 44, finished that season in second place in the F1 drivers’ championship, just one point behind champion Lewis Hamilton.
He is now claiming £64million ($84.2m) in damages, relating to loss of earnings and sponsorship, against the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA), motorsport’s governing body, Formula One Management Limited (FOM) and Bernie Ecclestone, the former chief executive of F1, who turned 95 on Tuesday.
This week, the defendants are asking the court to strike out Massa’s claim, arguing that he has delayed too long in bringing it and that he has no real prospect of successfully arguing that the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix crash caused him to lose the championship that year, which cost him £64m.
Speaking in court Thursday, De Marco described the crash as “one of the biggest sporting scandals in history.”
“The first point, of course, is that it is no exaggeration to say the deliberate crash was one of the most serious incidents of sport manipulation in world sport, not only because it was blatant attempt to intervene in the race but the deliberate act threatened the life of spectators and the driver himself,” he said.
“What then happens is the deliberate concealment of the conspiracy to have a crash, the deliberate concealment by those with responsibility for protecting the integrity of the sport, deliberately conspiring together to cover up one of the most serious scandals in the history of sport.”
Ecclestone and the defendants deny any cover up and dispute all of Massa’s claims.
The details of the case relate to what happened in Singapore on September 28, 2008.
In that race, Piquet Jr crashed his car at turn 17 during lap 14 when Massa had been leading the race. The crash meant a safety car was deployed, requiring all cars to stay behind it, and no pit stops could be made until the debris was cleared. Alonso, Piquet Jr’s Renault teammate, who had already made a pit stop on Lap 12 of 61, went on to win the race.
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Then-Ferrari driver Massa finished in 13th, scoring zero points, and lost out on the drivers’ championship to Hamilton. A year after the crash, Piquet Jr, who had been dropped by Renault, revealed he had been instructed to crash his car by Flavio Briatore, who was team principal at the time and former chairman of English soccer club Queens Park Rangers, and Pat Symonds, executive director of engineering.
Renault initially denied the accusations but later said it would not contest a charge before the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC). As a result of the fallout, in September 2009, Renault was handed a two-year suspended ban from Formula 1, while Briatore was banned for life and Symonds for five years by the FIA. These were later overturned on appeal and both have now returned to the sport. The FIA found no evidence of wrongdoing on Alonso’s part.
Massa said the FIA did not sufficiently investigate serious wrongdoing and that Ecclestone and Max Mosley, who was president of the FIA, colluded in this, causing him to lose the championship.
A key part of his legal claim hinged on a March 2023 interview Ecclestone gave to Ralf Bach at Formula 1 Insider. In that interview, Ecclestone said he and Mosley, who died in 2021, “decided not to do anything for the time being to protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal” and that “according to the rules … we would probably have had to annul the race in Singapore in those circumstances.”
In court, Ecclestone’s lawyers said he disputed what was described in that interview. It was after that interview came to light that Massa began legal proceedings.
“After many years, that interview was the first time it became apparent to Mr Massa that there had been a deliberate concealment of a conspiracy that was known,” De Marco said in court Thursday.
On Wednesday, David Quest KC, acting for Ecclestone, argued Massa’s 13th-place finish at the Singapore GP was the result of poor driving and pitting errors.
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“Mr Massa’s poor performance in the race was not related to the crash, and neither was Lewis Hamilton’s strong performance, and neither of them were aware of Renault’s ploy,” he told the court.
In their written submissions, seen by The Athletic, Quest and William Day said: “That was because he (Massa) prematurely drove away from his pit stop with the fuel nozzle and hose still attached to his car, knocking down a member of his refuelling team and driving into the path of another car.”
They added: “These declarations treat the court as a sports ‘debating club’, asking it to embark upon a counterfactual exercise concerning the ‘refereeing’ of a sporting event which took place nearly 17 years ago, and (in effect) to deprive Mr Hamilton of his 2008 title, even though he (1) is not a party to these proceedings, (2) was equally exposed to the crash, and (3) did not make the same driving errors as Mr Massa during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.
“The sporting consequences of the crash were in any event resolved by the WMSC, but, if the WMSC was not prepared to recognise Mr Massa as champion in 2009, after fully considering the matter, how can the court be expected to do that now? The court should not let a hopeless claim go to trial simply because Mr Massa wants to rake up the distant past.”
In his written submission, seen by The Athletic, John Mehrzad KC, acting for the FIA, argued that Massa knew enough in 2009 to bring a claim, so it was too late to file one now.
“Mr Massa’s claim is as tortuous as it is overly ambitious,” he said. “It may therefore come as no surprise that Mr Massa’s convoluted claim has stalled at various stages during this litigation, only then to reverse repeatedly in the hope of discovering a new route forward.”
In her written submission, Anneliese Day KC, acting for the FOM, said: “This litigation will not result in Mr Massa getting the prize he wants, and the only ‘winners’ out of a further 12 to 18 months of litigation will be the lawyers. The simple fact is that over the course of both the Singapore Grand Prix and across the 2008 season, Mr Hamilton out-performed Mr Massa (and everyone else).
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“There is nothing unusual or unfair about that: Mr Massa simply had the misfortune to be up against one of the greatest drivers the sport has ever seen, and neither he nor anyone else could beat Mr Hamilton over the course of the season.”
The three-day hearing in front of Mr Justice Jay in court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice concludes on Friday, with a ruling expected at a later date.
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Tom Burrows is a football news writer for The Athletic UK. He was previously a staff editor for three years. Prior to that, he worked on news and investigations for national newspapers. Follow Tom on Twitter @TBurrows16

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