LONDON.- The accusations made by the Brazilian pilot Felipe Massa against the Formula 1 for the 2008 world championship could go to trial, a London judge decided Thursday.
Massa, who is now 44 years old and races in Brazilian motorsport competitions, had gone to the High Court of Justice in London in March 2024 for this case.
The judge Robert Jay He considered this Thursday that the athlete should have the right to defend in court his thesis that he was once the victim of a conspiracy.
What Jay did rule out is that this future trial could call into question the world drivers’ title that year, which the British man won. Lewis Hamiltondue to the regulations of the International Automobile Federation (FIA).
It was the first of the seven world titles won by Hamilton, who finished that season in the general standings with just one point ahead of Massa.
Incident in question
The Brazilian driver estimates that he was injured during the Singapore Grand Prix, fifteenth of the 18 events of that 2008 season and which the Spaniard won. Fernando Alonso with a Renault.
Massa assures that, to favor Alonso’s victory, his team ordered his second driver, also a Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr.who deliberately crashed his car into a wall.
Alonso, who had only started in 15th place on the grid, had just passed through the pits at the time of the accident.
The intervention of the safety car allowed him to overtake the other drivers, who had to stop in the pits, and end up winning the race.
Massa finished that Grand Prix outside the scoring zone and Hamilton was third, earning some very valuable points for him in the fight for the title.
The judge estimated that Massa can go to trial if he wants to claim 64 million pounds (72.5 million euros or 83.6 million dollars) in damages from the FIA, the company Formula One Management (FOM) and his former boss Bernie Ecclestone for not having carried out an investigation into Piquet Jr.’s accident.
That sum was calculated by estimating the salaries and commercial contracts that a world championship title could have provided Massa.
