Felipe Massa’s efforts to deliver a authorized problem over his 2008 world championship defeat had been instigated by former Formulation 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, in line with two-times world champion Emerson Fittipaldi.

The 2008 championship runner-up is reported to have assembled a authorized staff to look into the FIA’s response to that 12 months’s Singapore Grand Prix. Massa’s transfer adopted Ecclestone’s declare that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley may have taken earlier motion over the result of the controversial race.

Fernando Alonso gained the race after his Renault staff instructed Nelson Piquet Jnr to crash their different automotive, with a purpose to set off a Security Automobile interval which his staff mate had been primed to learn from.

Massa led eventual champion Lewis Hamilton within the early phases of the race, however failed to attain after his Ferrari staff botched his pit cease when the drivers pitted in response to the Security Automobile interval Piquet intentionally triggered. Hamilton completed the race third, out-scored Massa by six factors and went on to win the title by one.

Ecclestone claimed final month the FIA “had sufficient data in time to analyze the matter” and so they “ought to have cancelled the race in Singapore underneath these circumstances.”

“Meaning it could by no means have occurred for the world championship standings,” Ecclestone mentioned. “Then Felipe Massa would have develop into world champion and never Lewis Hamilton.”

Ecclestone clashed with Hamilton final 12 months after the 92-year-old defended his former driver Nelson Piquet – the daddy of the ‘Crashgate’ conspirator – over racist feedback he made in regards to the seven-times world champion. In response Hamilton mentioned “older voices” shouldn’t be given a platform.

Fittipaldi believes Ecclestone made his feedback in regards to the race purposefully to generate headlines. “I believe who began this was Bernie Ecclestone,” Fittipaldi instructed The Mirror.

“Typical Bernie! Bernie wished to create a polemic and this polemic that he’s creating, it’s simply to generate some information.”

Fittipaldi mentioned Massa’s probabilities of out-scoring Hamilton in Singapore had been finally undone by Ferrari’s pit cease error.

“If you go backwards, in that race, Ferrari made a mistake throughout a pit cease,” he mentioned. “Meaning the results of the race wouldn’t change lots. It’s so troublesome to reverse that. That’s my private opinion.”

Nonetheless Fittipaldi harassed he’s “100% pro-Felipe Massa, for positive”, and described his disappointment at watching his fellow Brazilian’s slender title defeat to Hamilton on residence on the finish of that season.

“I might love if Felipe can be world champion, being Brazilian, for positive. I used to be in Interlagos that 12 months contained in the McLaren pit with Lewis Hamilton. And when Felipe glided by solely two individuals, myself and my spouse, stood up and screamed.

“Everyone was quiet. 15 seconds later, everyone stood up and began screaming and I didn’t perceive why! However, anyway, that was the day that occurred.”

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