Massa 2008 Champion?

[Andy B]

It seems Massa's lawyers are confident they can turn the 2008 WC around with the claim that the Singapore GP should have been null and void. Even I have a few issues with this: -

• It's 15 years ago!
• The FIA state that two weeks after an event or the conclusion of a WC the result cannot be changed.
• There are many unknowns that may or may not have happened such as would Massa's Ferrari finished, would he have crashed or just a technical problem that dropped him down the field.
• Then you have to look deeper do they go back and look at Schumacher taking out Damon Hill?
• Then of course there's 2021 do they change the result of the WC in favour of Lewis?

There's far to many variables in all of this and its in the history books so should not be changed and the end result will be bad press for F1.

[John S]

I reckon it's more about money, Andy. Oh and a bit of revenge on Liberty from Bernie. 

This is different to the other examples you mention. Damon & Lewis 'supposed' title losses were examined at the time and both could have been appealed, but no such appeal was forthcoming from team or drivers.

In 2008 no facts about crashgate were known by Massa, or most other people until spurned Piquet Jr publicly blew the whistle in August 09.
Massa or Ferrari could not have appealed the result in time as they were in the dark.

Good ole Bernie, who has had an axe to grind with Liberty since they took over, happened to drop bombshell in interview earlier this year that He (FOM) & Max (FIA) knew about deliberate crash before end of season. Of course Bernie now claims no memory of saying such a thing to the journalist, IMHO he knew well that something like Massa's lawsuit might kick off and cause both confusion, frustration & probably a substantive payout. 

Yeah it was 15 years back, however if FIA/FOM knew in season & no action was taken at time a big question mark hangs over legally relying on the 2 week rule post season.

I'm not sure Massa will get the WDC award, however I can see 10s of millions changing hands over it in settlement. Liberty will probably prefer that to having F1 dirty laundry spread accross the globe for months if it gets a court date.

[Alianora La Canta]

The case is starting now because key evidence was only revealed by Bernie Ecclestone this year. Before that, what happened was not suspected to have involved a crime on the part of the organisers, thus a court case would have been futile. However, there are crimes that sound rather close to what the FIA is suspected of having done.

In that case, "it's 15 years ago" may not be relevant (as far as I can tell, it isn't in Brazil and wouldn't be in France if the case was serious enough).

What the FIA states about when championships can be challenged might count against it, since at this point it's the FIA's own actions that are alleged to be the crime (otherwise, anyone could commit a crime and justify it by hiding their crime until after the timeout). The brevity of allowance the FIA has (2 weeks) is much shorter than permitted in most walks of life, especially in cases where criminal action is suspected. There's also the part where, if the FIA committed wrongdoing as part of Singapore 2008, the FIA awarding the Piquets immunity becomes another point of attack against the FIA. (since they effectively became co-conspirators to hiding the FIA's behaviour by taking all the flak).

The "maybes" are not relevant unless the alleged crimes involving the FIA had knock-on effects that demonstrably assisted Massa (and would also have to counter the point that had Ferrari chosen when to pit rather than had it forced-rushed by the Safety Car procedure, Massa probably wouldn't have escorted a fuel line down the pit lane).

I think at least 3 championships in the 21st century* become open to challenge on a similar basis if this goes through. The older the championship is, the safer it is, simply because there are fewer witnesses in a position to take sides (due to Charlie Whiting and Max Mosley's deaths, even 2008 is tricky, let alone anything preceding that date). 1994 is rock-solid safe because Damon Hill has consistently said that the title should in reality have been Ayrton Senna's, and with the best will in the world, no court in the world has resurrection as an available remedy (which would be a pre-requisite for Ayrton to get the necessary points even if every title contender consented to a re-run for old times' sake).

* - 2012 is at risk because Bahrain, by FIA regulations, should not have been held for reasons of safety and political advertising by the promoter (each regulation requires the removal of the race in their own right as the consequence). Both infractions were formally pointed out to the FIA at least a week before the weekend began but the FIA chose to ignore them because "it's too late now" (patently false). That loses Vettel his first win of the season, but only loses Alonso 6 points. This means Alonso (272 points) takes his 3rd title, defeating Vettel (266 points). That one's the easiest to explain and probably the easiest to swallow, since at no point is any driver or team's conduct challenged, only the FIA's (and the promoter's).

2022 is at risk because Red Bull broke the budget cap in 2021 and was fined less than the amount subsequent filings indicate Red Bull overspent (let alone any penalty that is supposed to occur). If you think removing a title after the fact is difficult, try getting money unspent. Since this would likely remove Red Bull entirely from the standings, that would make Leclerc champion... ...except that Saudi Arabia 2022 happened on a track not meeting FIA regulations for a circuit of any grade and thus all results from it would need to be removed, and Japan 2022 is separately challenged for multiple breaches of the Bianchi settlement, that put drivers at risk. Depending on whether that is resolved by doing nothing, chopping off the start of the race, the end, both or simply deleting the event from the records, affects whether Leclerc or Russell ends up champion.

2021 is the most complicated one because of the lawyers involved. The races I know to be in dispute include Belgium (according to the FIA regulations, the race should never have started), multiple races with misuse of flags concerning cranes and crews, Saudi Arabia (see previous paragraph) and Abu Dhabi (the dangerous Safety Car wave-by that was against FIA regulations). That's aside from investigation into possible breaches of neutrality regarding Red Bull and the previously-mentioned overspend problem (debate about the contribution of mainline car from 2020 spending vs upgrades from 2021 spending mean it's not open-and-shut as to whether that's the slam-dunk 2022 is, hence the relevance of the neutrality part). I haven't even tried computing how many candidates for champion there are in this case, although Hamilton obviously is the most likely if any change occurs.