Something Felipe Massa’s Son Said Convinced Him To Chase 2008 Championship

Posted on November 10, 2023 | by Charley Williams If, over the past few months, you’ve wondered why Felipe Massa started this whole ‘chasing the 2008 championship’ saga, he may have just revealed the answer, and it actually begins with something his son said to him.  We know it was initially prompted by Bernie Ecclestone’s reported comments on the 2008 Singapore GP (or what we may know better as Crashgate), where Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed to bring out the safety car and help his Renault teammate, Fernando Alonso, win the race. The ex-F1 boss said earlier this year that he and then FIA president Max Mosley knew of the situation but decided not to act on it to protect the sport’s integrity. Earlier this year, Massa banded a group of lawyers together to seek compensation for, or perhaps even overturn the results of the 2008 championship after the conspiracy mentioned above “denied” him the title. And now he’s also revealed something his son said to him spurred him on even more. Talking on the Track Limits Podcast, “It’s very important to say that I didn’t really decide after 15 years to go back and put together a big team of lawyers from many different countries, not only Brazil, England, France, Switzerland, USA. “And then we put together a bunch of people, a big team, a professional team to work and to understand if after 15 years, for sure everything came out after Bernie’s interview because it’s not fair. “It’s not fair for the sport, and it’s not fair that you maybe lose a championship because of a manipulation race, so that’s why I decided to do that. “Also, my son came to me, he’s 13 years old, and he said, ‘you are the champion, so you need to do something, you need to work, and you need to show that everything is manipulated and it is not fair and it is not fair for the sport, for the people’. “So that’s why we decided to do that because we have some new argument that after Bernie’s interview came out. Also, after Charlie Whiting’s interview about Max Mosley.” FIA and FOM are currently completing an internal investigation and recently requested one last extension to the initial deadline set by Massa’s legal team, from October 12th to November 15th. His team are hopeful they will reach the “same conclusion” as they have. Do you think anything will come from Massa’s title quest?