Should Felipe Massa win his court case against F1 and Bernie Ecclestone to be crowned F1’s 2008 World Champion, it would deny Lewis Hamilton his first of seven titles.

But the Brazilian insists his fight is “not against” Hamilton, it’s about a result that was “manipulated”.

Felipe Massa: Not against Lewis, but a race that was manipulated

On the 2nd November 2008, Massa was Formula 1’s World Champion for all of 38 seconds before Hamilton pulled off a last-lap-of-the-season pass on Timo Glock to beat the Ferrari driver to the title by a single point.

Despite his obvious disappointment, Massa accepted he had lost the title.

At least he did until last year when former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone revealed both he and the FIA had known about Crashgate that year already and should’ve deleted it from the record books.

“According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions,” Ecclestone told F1-Insider last April. “That means it would never have happened for the World Championship standings. Then Felipe Massa would have become World Champion and not Lewis Hamilton.”

Crashgate was the day Renault ordered Nelson Piquet Jr. to deliberately crash at the Singapore Grand Prix, with Massa falling from first to 13th as a result of a botched pit stop while Hamilton finished third.

If that result had been erased, Massa would’ve been the 2008 World Champion.

Now he’s in court fighting Ecclestone, Formula 1 and the FIA for his right to the World title, and while he admits it will be difficult overturning the result, he insists it is “not impossible.

“This is about justice,” he told Formu1e 1 Magazin. “That’s what we’re fighting for. In other sports, results have also been revised. Not yet in Formula 1, but now there is every reason, because a race and therefore a championship has been manipulated.

“Until fifteen years after the incident I heard everything and understood what had happened. And then you can’t let go of it anymore. It was just unfair. “Everyone knows that what happened is not right.

“I think it is unique that a driver physically goes to the civil court to take on powerful sports organisations such as the FIA ​​and FOM. I also hope to send a signal with this and show that everyone is free and strong enough to stand up for his or her rights.”

Should Massa be successful, it would mean Hamilton would lose his first World title, the Briton dropping from a seven-time World Champion to six.

But the Brazilian is adamant this is not about Hamilton.

“My fight is not against Lewis, but against a race that was manipulated,” he said using the word that Hamilton uttered in 2021 when he lost the 2021 title to Max Verstappen in controversial circumstances. “And against the conspiracy afterwards, which ultimately cost me the World title.

“All drivers are members of the FIA. The FIA ​​has a moral obligation to treat its members fairly.”

But however his legal challenge plays out, nothing will make up for Massa missing out on being crowned World Champion on Brazilian soil after a Brazilian GP victory.

“Can you imagine what it would have been like for me to become World Champion in my own country, in Brazil?” he said.

“I will never get that feeling back. Winning the title in front of my own fans in Interlagos, that would have been something indescribably beautiful, something unforgettable. I will never experience that feeling.

“But justice, the recognition as the official Formula 1 World Champion of 2008, is something I have to fight for. And I will.”