Felipe Massa says he’s still committed to pursuing justice for his 2008 championship loss following comments from former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone that he knew that year’s 2008 Singapore Grand Prix had been fixed.
That year’s Singapore race is infamous for the so-called 2008 ‘crashgate’ scandal in which Renault directed driver Nelson Piquet Junior to crash during the grand prix to trigger a safety car that would help teammate Fernando Alonso win the race from 15th on the grid.
It’s one of the biggest examples of cheating in F1 history.
Massa had been leading the race when the crash happened but finished out of the points after a mistake during the pit stop he made in response to the crash.
Title rival Lewis Hamilton finished third for six points. The Briton defeated Massa by just one point at the end of the season.
The scandal didn’t become public knowledge until the following year, by which time it was too late to overturn the result, but Ecclestone’s confirmation that he knew of the scandal during 2008 but chose not to investigate.
Massa responded by reserving his right to legal action, and speaking in Monte Carlo at the weekend, the Brazilian said he was still pursuing a claim.
“I thought what happened at the end was not correct,” he said. “So I’m looking forward to understanding everything that has happened.
“To be honest, I fought them to the last lap, I fought them to the last moment. I used a lot my heart to celebrate that moment — [that] we fought until the end, I won the [last] race in Brazil.
“But something that happened in that race in Singapore was not correct for the sport, for justice, I would say.
“It‘s about to understand if what went on was correct or not.”
WOLFF CRITICAL OF ‘SUB-OPTIMAL’ CAR REVEAL IN MONACO
Formula 1 teams will sometimes go to remarkable lengths to hide developments on their cars from prying rival eyes.
Official team photos will have sensitive bits of aerodynamics blurred or removed. Promotional track days will deploy a car in an old or generic specification. Mechanics will be deployed to stand around the car to prevent a clear line of sight on the grid or in the garage.
Teams are even more devious when it comes to discovering secrets on other cars.
Spy photographers are tasked with capturing high-resolution images of bodywork of interest. Until recently teams would even use 3D cameras to try to scan rival machines to glean precious information.
But all of that defensive and offensive work was made to look silly when Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes car was hoisted high into the air in Monaco, revealing all its secrets to the entire paddock.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone was happy with the way the cars had their prize assets revealed.
Toto Wolff is disappointed Mercedes has had its new floor revealed to the paddock thanks to some novel car recovery techniques.
Marshals craned Hamilton’s Mercedes extremely high into the air to remove it from the track after the Briton crashed at Mirabeau during FP3 on Saturday afternoon.
The W14 was suspended for several minutes before being lowered onto a recovery truck off the circuit and sent back to pit lane.
The floor, which is the most important aerodynamic part of the car, was exposed for several minutes to television cameras and photographers just one day after being first used.
It was a sequence Wolff found frustrating, joking that it was like watching a circus.
“Whoever performed the crane [recovery] has probably worked for Cirque du Soleil before,” he joked.
“I mean, honestly, that I don‘t even comprehend. The car was on the road. You could have put it on a truck, and rather than that you’re showcasing the car to everyone in the world.
“That was sub-optimum for us, to say the least.”
Though the Mercedes boss was quick to downplay criticism of F1 volunteer marshals.
“Don’t thrash the [marshals],” he said. “Everybody‘s doing their best, and I don’t want to be a team principal that lashes out against [marshals] that are doing their job.”
While there will have been interest in Mercedes’s new floor, there would have been considerably more excitement later that day when Sergio Pérez crashed out of qualifying and his class-leading Red Bull Racing car needed the same highwire treatment.
Team boss Christian Horner was less perturbed, however, noting that most teams devote significant resources to paddock espionage.
“It’s very rude to look up people‘s skirts,” he joked.
“Pictures or floors get taken in around the paddock. Each team will be employing spy photographers to get pictures of the cars when they‘re in parts and pieces, that’s common practice.
“I wouldn‘t have thought is the first time a picture of the floor [has been taken].
“It’s probably the first time it‘s been suspended from a crane, but I think all teams are always striving for that intelligence.”
WILLIAMS TO REVIVE ICONIC GULF LIVERY
Williams will task fans with picking a livery for its car later this year in a marketing campaign for sponsor Gulf Oil.
The British team has devised four paint schemes featuring Gulf’s iconic orange and blue hues for fans to vote on in a tournament-style competition running throughout June.
The winning livery will be used in Singapore, Japan and Qatar in September and October.
Gulf liveries are among the most recognisable in motorsport. Perhaps best known among them are 1968 Le Mans-winning Ford GT40 and the 1970 Porsche 917.
McLaren was also an early partner of the oil company, albeit most famously in the Can-Am series.
McLaren renewed its sponsorship with Gulf in 2000 and ran a special Gulf-themed livery at the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix, but Williams pinched the deal starting from this season.
Williams is no stranger to reviving iconic sponsor liveries, having revived the Martini paint scheme made famous by Porsche at Le Mans in the 1970s in 2015–18.
Red Bull Racing is also running a livery competition this season, with fans invited to design the car’s colour scheme for races held in the United States.
