Last month (August), the Brazilian driver Felipe Massa began a legal action stating that he was “victim of a conspiracy” and it was “the rightful 2008 Driver’s Champion”. Last week, one of his lawyers, Bernardo Viana, said that they are expecting support coming from Hamilton
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In an interview to Reuters.com, Viana said that they expect Hamilton to help in the quest to overturn the championship outcome. “He is an important ambassador for the sport and has always defended sporting integrity. He is an honorary Brazilian citizen and very well-liked by Brazilians, so I hope he will support us.”.
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Although, Hamilton had already previously said that he is not focused on something that happened 15 years ago. Massa in the other way, says that he “will fight to the end until ‘justice’ is done”.
This all started after Bernie Ecclestone’s comments on the 2008 Singapore GP, when Nelson Piquet Jr. was ordered by Renault to crash on purpose, bringing out the safety car and helping Fernando Alonso, his teammate, win the race. Ecclestone said in an interview that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley knew about the situation but decided not to act in-season, “protecting the sport and saving it from a huge scandal”.
Felipe’s argument is that if the race was canceled, the points would not be handed out, and he would have become the world champion instead of Hamilton. Felipe’s lawyer, Viana, had also said in the interview that F1 bosses have “asked for more time” to respond to the claim, and are expected to do so in October.
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