Felipe Massa begins £64MILLION court case amid claims a 'conspiracy' saw him robbed of 2008 Formula One world championship - which Lewis Hamilton won by ONE point

Felipe Massa's court case for £64million after Lewis Hamilton won the 2008 F1 World Drivers' Championship has begun. 

The former Ferrari driver believes he is the rightful champion after Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed at the Singapore GP that season. 

Piquet Jr's crash led to a safety car, during which a botched pit stop saw Massa slip out of the points. He went on to lose the title to Hamilton by one point.

He is taking legal action over the alleged 'conspiracy' of 'Crashgate', claiming it was covered up by authorities such as F1's chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, while then-FIA president Max Mosley failed to investigate the incident. 

Ecclestone's lawyer, David Quest KC, called it a 'misguided attempt to reopen the results of the 2008 F1 Drivers' Championship,' as per The Times. 

But Ecclestone, now 95, reportedly told F1 insider in 2023 that he and Mosley knew Piquet Jr crashed deliberately but did nothing in order to 'protect the sport and save it from a huge scandal'. Massa's case rests on this. 

Meanwhile, the defendants argue that Massa knew enough in 2008 and 2009 to bring a lawsuit at the time - something he denies - and that the case should therefore be dismissed for being too late.

Massa, appearing at the High Court in London on Wednesday, wants £64m plus interest in compensation. 

'Crashgate' is a well-documented scandal in Formula One. Brazilian star Massa was leading the Singapore GP when Piquet crashed on lap 14, turn 17, prompting a safety car.

His Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso pitted earlier than the competition, and rose from 15th to first by the chequered flag, while Massa's crew messed up his pit stop and he went away empty handed. 

Piquet called it a 'simple mistake' at the time. However, he later revealed that he had been asked by Renault to crash deliberately. Team principal Flavio Briatore and chief technical officer Pat Symonds were subsequently banned for multiple years. 

Alonso was cleared of wrongdoing. 

Massa believes the race result should have been annulled, meaning Hamilton would have scored six less points and the title would have gone to the Brazilian.  

Nick De Marco KC, Massa’s barrister, argued the three-day case should go to a full trial because the defendants 'cannot establish that Mr Massa’s claims have no real prospect of success'.

'Mr Massa has a real prospect of succeeding on all of the grounds,' he said.

But the defendants are trying to get the case thrown out.

Anneliese Day KC, for Formula One Management, said in written submissions: 'In truth, it was not the deployment of the safety car which changed the course of history for Mr Massa, but rather a series of subsequent racing errors by him and his team during the remaining 47 laps of the race.

'The simple fact is that over the course of both the Singapore Grand Prix and across the 2008 season, Mr Hamilton outperformed Mr Massa and everyone else.'

Quest added: 'Mr Massa argues that, but for the FIA's handling of the crash, he would have won the Drivers' Championship.

'These declarations treat the court as a sports 'debating club', asking it to embark upon a counterfactual exercise concerning the 'refereeing' of a sporting event which took place nearly 17 years ago.'