Former Ferrari driver Felipe Massa said on Thursday he will “fight to the end” to be declared 2008 Formula One world champion instead of Britain’s Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/em> revealed last week that the Brazilian had started legal action against Formula One and the governing FIA seeking substantial damages resulting from an alleged “conspiracy” that denied him the title.<\/p>\n “We’re going to fight to get the title,” Massa told Brazilian website GE in an interview, making clear his case was about more than financial compensation.<\/p>\n “I’m here to make it clear things didn’t happen fairly.”<\/p>\n Massa, who retired in 2017, was leading the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix when fellow-Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr. deliberately crashed his Renault into the wall on lap 14 of the 61-lap race.<\/p>\n The crash triggered a safety car that benefited his team mate Fernando Alonso, who went on to win while Massa failed to score after a bungled pitstop.<\/p>\n Hamilton, racing for McLaren at the time and now an honorary Brazilian citizen, eventually beat Massa by a point for the first of his record-equalling seven championships.<\/p>\n Michael Schumacher, Massa’s former Ferrari team mate and close friend of the Brazilian during his racing career, is the only other driver to have won seven titles.<\/p>\n Formula One had a rule at the time that the outcome of a championship could not be changed after the end of season awards ceremony.<\/p>\n Massa sought legal advice this year after former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told a German website in March that he and former FIA president Max Mosley had been aware in 2008 that Piquet crashed deliberately but had not acted.<\/p>\n “I have nothing against Hamilton. This battle is about a race that was rigged,” said Massa, adding he would “ideally” be declared the 2008 champion and that the Singapore race should have been cancelled.<\/p>\n “That world title was ours, and it was taken away by manipulation,” he said.<\/p>\n