15 years on, and this is a depressing situation for Massa. Hard not to think he ultimately got the short end of the stick in his career, considering he was marginally successful and a descent guy. 2008 must have felt bitter to Massa, with retirements while leading races, that event in Singapore, and the way he lost the championship at home after doing everything right. Then Came Hungary 2009, when he had two accidents subsequently; being smashed on the head by a 1 kg spring, then torpedoing the barriers head on full blast. He did soldier on, while it was clear he no longer had the edge, those 1/100 seconds needed to win, but as damaged goods as he was, he did relatively well in 2014, and lasted an impressive 6 years after his "accident". He and Chris Amon must be in the pinnacle of F1 bad luck, I mean, among the ones that did not get killed.
Sadly. History has never been rewritten and 15 years later will not be again. If its not about money then what is it, because pride cometh before a fall whilst i feel sad for Philipe that one incident was not the only incident that occurred during that year and therefore not the only reason why he lost the WC I get it it hurts but coulda woulda shoulda will not change history
even so, no one questioned FIA’s decision to hide this trash. F1 is a show, not a sport, but echoes consequences. LH won the WC that year and that’s it. What kind of reparation could do justice to the ones that got really hurt? On the other side the title, the awards are not written law, are just rules from a corporation.
My opinion is that he was in on it. Why would he agree to what was a bad strategy after starting 15th without something to help him jump up the field and force everyone else to pit under the safety car. He just played dumb
He knew. Renault had a team briefing before the race and discussed the possibilities with the drivers. Briatore himself said that "Nando accepted the strategy". Let's not forget that Alonso and Briatore are still best friends to this day.
Lmfao that was literally never said. He has ZERO chance of winning. All hes doing is putting his own name in Mud and getting himself black listed from the paddock forever.
As a Brazilian, I'd love to have seen Massa win in 2008 - but I don't see the results being changed, and don't think they should after this much time. Maybe have something within the rules where the appeals may be granted after the time period specified in the Right of Review section, due to extraordinary events, but not to exceed X amount of time.
@@NoToBigBro Yeah for murders lmao, this is like going back to the england vs argentina world cup match and ruling out the hand of god goal. There's a lot of luck in sports, mistakes are made all the time but a final decision has to be made there and then or they could be argued forever. Massa was on the bad side of luck that time as much as Hamilton was on the bad side of it in 2021 Abu Dhabi. Shit happens, move on and don't cry about it 15 years later.
Yes I've heard of it. Cold cases are cases that still remain open (were never shut) - it doesn't fit this situation since it was ruled shortly thereafter. I think this would be more about reopening a closed case, rather than a "cold case." Good point though! @@NoToBigBro
aquela temporada inteira foi uma vergonha, 10x pior que 2021. A unica diferença é que 2021 foi na ultima corrida e o pessoal de memória fraca só consegue lembrar disso. 2008 foi ridículo de um ponto de vista administrativo, legal e desportivo, uma das temporadas mais mal administradas em questão de corrida.
I get why Massa is upset but in the end changing the 2008 WDC results (which won’t happen anyways) would only punish Hamilton and while he indirectly profited off of Crash Gate he had absolutely nothing to do with the manipulation and shouldn’t be punished for it. Really sucks what the Renault team did and you can’t tell me that Alonso didn’t knew anything about it.
It's not that Hamilton would be punished - he profited off of what he shouldn't have in the first place. So it's taking away the unearned profit, not punishing.
Here's where the comparison falls short: a referee's call is always final-- but we're asking about what happens when that same referee admits years later that he made a miscall ON PURPOSE. In this case, the "referee" is the sporting body itself in the discipline it handed out during that season. The president of that body has admitted publicly to doing this. This is not a mistake or a bad call by one group; this is collision by the sport itself, and comparing it to 2021 or anything else is nuts. This is completely unique as far as I'm aware. I don't have any idea how it should get resolved, but it's infinitely more serious than this video and some commenters want to pretend.
This. The referee comes out and admits "I knew I was making the wrong call, I did so on purpose. I also profited from that decision financially". Does the guy who lost because of that decision not have the right to ask for some compensation? Also, the precedent is clear, the only action they could take would be voiding the Singapore GP. If they voided the Abu Dhabi 2021 Grand Prix, then nothing actually changes except you rob Yuki of his best ever finish. Max still wins the title. So even if Massa did get the 2008 title, Lewis couldn't get the 2021 title, as Max wins on countback anyway because he won more races that year and performed much better then Lewis did. So there's no risk of this bringing AD21 back, the only people who think that are Team LH fanboys.
@@CharlesFreckbut the fia admitted they did not use the real safety car procedure on purpose? Sounds like an admition of deceit to me. Plus 2008 there is a very high chance Ferrari would have screwed massas stop anyway. He was going to be in either that lap or one of the 2 or 3 to follow so I dunno how you can say it never would have happened without the sc. I’m also pretty sure he went off later in the race by himself and lost a handful of time. And in 2021 there is just simply nothing that would have cost hamilton that race apart from an fia screw up
@@CharlesFreckit doesn't work like that on count back. Yes they can count back but they both went into that last race on the same point's. Yes max won more race's but then Lewis can call out the race that happened but didn't happen behind the safety that max got a win for. The problem is in the regulations they can't remove race's or discount them. They can only remove the wrong that was done in that race directly that changed the outcome. They would have to change massi decision count back two laps and Lewis in the winner anyway. That's going by the regulations as massi didn't even follow safety car regulations. The fact massive was then found at fault and agreed that he made a human error, they can't remove that race but discount massi mistakes and count back two laps.
@@chriscollins550There is precedent of using countback when the FIA haven’t followed procedures correctly - Brazil 2003. Never understood why people thought AD would be deleted and Max would be champion regardless. I’m sure even The Race did a video on the very topic and the various possible outcomes.
I don't understand why the 2008 crashgate issue is even being compared to the 2021 controversy. The ONLY reason Massa is even doing anything is because he previously didn't challenge it on the assumption that the organizers didn't know about it until it was too late to challenge the results, and this is information he didn't know before the deadline to lodge a protest. The 2021 controversy is nothing like that, Mercedes complained before the award ceremony (the deadline), and they chose not to pursue it further in court. There isn't any new information that they now know that would've made them pursue it back then. That's the only possible thing that could make the two issues comparable
The point is if the 2008 can be reversed so does the 2021. 2021 is more of open and shut case to be over turned.. but opening a box like this is gonna change alot. As much as I know the fia wronged Hamilton. I don't want results changed
If the last race of 2021 is annuled, Max still wins the championship and Massa's case is not going anywhere, nothing will change after 15 years...you guys really need to move on from 2021 already...
@@alistairfannell6694Nobody is taking the 2008 title away from Lewis, Massa is still tripping from all the spinning he did in Silverstone that year...
That's not how it works. If the Singapore GP was nil and void, Massa wins the title. If the Abu Dhabi GP was nil and void, max still wins the title. You can't just take away his title like that
If it's true that the FIA knew of the fix and did nothing, they absolutely violated their duty and Massa is right to seek damages from them. I think changing the result is a bad idea, but Felipe is owed at least a payout for getting screwed.
Their only duty in that case was to disqualify Renault. That's it. What are you suggesting, the race should be annulled just because Ferrari messed up its response to the crash? If they had not made the pitting error, the race would stand? How does that make sense? You can't cherry pick.
The quote from Ecclestone: "We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions." Maybe he's wrong about the rules, maybe he's talking out of his ass, (he, of course, claims now to not remember saying this) but if true, they knowingly disregarded their own procedure to protect themselves instead of doing their duty. I'm not disputing that Ferrari fucked up, but I don't see how to conclude that Massa wasn't screwed when we have quotes saying "this, specifically, is how we screwed him".
@@Slaker117 if Ecclestone wasn't just talking out his ass, someone would be able to point to the statutes/rules that says if a team cheats the whole race is cancelled
The British Media...Massa's "absurd legal case". Abu Dhabi 2021 "legit scandal", "robbery". The diference it's that, if Abu Dhabi 2021 race was also annulled, Max would still be champ.
Absolutely true. The most Mercedes could try to do is get the season entirely voided in which case no one is the Champion and Lewis stays on 7 and Max would have just 1 title courtesy of 2022
If you void the race, you run the risk of dropping/promoting other drivers in the final standings. That’s not fair on them. What is fair is to void the last two laps, don’t remove Max as WDC and share the trophy between the two standout drivers of the year.
@@liammcquillan7382 Mercedes Team, conveniently wants to just annul the last lap. When in reality and being fair to the rules, the race result should be all annul. Because it was an decision done during the race.
so one case where a 3rd party ruined their race with themselves also playing a part in ruining it vs organizer not following their own procedure and directly influencing the result of the race. At this point its all too late for any changes that hold any merit.
@@liammcquillan7382 it's like a Football Team, that suffers a penalty in extra time beyond the time presented by the Referee Team, that cost them an important title. They can't advocate in a Court of Law, to annul the extra time beyond the time presented by the Referee Team. But for the complete game to be annulled.
As a Verstappen fan I can understand Mercedes anger on how the last race of 2021 was handled by race direction. But what I do not understand is why they think the potential precedent is going to make a difference. Massa’s team wants to remove the results from the singapore GP from that years championship, which makes him Champion. But even if Mercedes get the FIA to do the same. Max will remain champion since he had more wins in 2021 and they were level on points before the Abu Dhabi GP.
Same argument I have made on some other videos. If SG gets canceled, AD should be the same thing. Even if it was a governing body making a wrong call and covering it up vs a race director making a questionable but technically legal call per wording. Either way though, 21 is the greatest season we had in a long time.
There is a precedent for the FIA not following procedures correctly and they took the final race result from the previous racing lap on count back. So there is a difference between Singapore and Abu Dhabi, but too late to change anything now. It’s all a bit of a farce.
That race should have finished behind the safety car, so therefore Lewis wins race and is champion, plus redbull overspent on the budget cap so they should be stripped of title, they stripped Schumacher in 97 of all his points
@coolc2452 100% facts. Verstapoen should have had a race ban for landing on Lewis's car at Monza. Crashed into him on purpose. As I've said. Once other cars can go toe to toe with Max. He'll be the dirty driver he is.
It's about setting a president more than anything. The whole massa situation opens up every single season in the last 50 years open to observation and legal cases. That's the big issue this has caused
@Kieran_OPC It doesn't though, that's not how statutes of limitations work. If Toto had new revelationary information about AD'21, that could restart the statute clock; but he doesn't or he would have. In contrast, Massa didn't have grounds for his claim until Bernie admitted it in his interview.
What mercedes are looking at with interest is,..... The FIA told mercedes their is nothing can be done after a certain date...... So if massa's case is won things can be done a certain date. They are not comparing on track things but the fias own rules
When Ecclestone revealed that F1 and FIA worked togheter to cover everything up while the 2008 season was still happening it changed everything. Up until then, it was acceptable that no one knew about it until it all broke out in 2009, but if those responsible for guarenteeing the sportsmanship in Formula One were envolved at a time that action could be taken is enough for Massa to make a case about his right to the 2008 World Championship. This mentality of not wanting to change anything because it can cause trouble just should be considered absolutely wrong by any real F1 fan. It all has to be based on real competition for it to work and just sit back knowing that injustice has been made is a sign of worry for me.
This is why the only solution for Massa is a civil claim for lost earnings against Bernie and the FIA. This would win, and would be seen as appropriate justice. Let's hope his legal team see sense, and go down this route.
It's hard to believe FIA truly knew. Ecclestone won't testify in court, because it's not in his interest. And cancelling races shouldn't be an option, they should compensate everyone for their tickets then.
The problem I have with this is the supposition that if the result had been annulled sooner, that the rest of the season would have continued in the exact same way. That is obviously false - if Hamilton had found himself further behind Massa then for the rest of the season he may have taken more risks and scored more points - he may not have - and that is the point you cannot say. Also as far as Massa in that race, regardless of the actions of Renault it was him and his pit crew which caused him to drop from the points and whilst the pit stop was triggered by the crash, the actions of the team were 100% their own so that cannot just be glossed over either.
If the crash didn't happen, the bad pitstop will not happened. It's obviously false to assume if the crash didn't happen the pitstop will proceed like we actually know.
@@swordsman1137 yeah and shit happens in a race, at the time no one thought of it as a controversy until after the race, therefore that crash is considered an incident and all teams and drivers should be ready for anything to happen.
@@swordsman1137 It does not matter. The crash was deliberate but was not aimed against Massa. Crashes happen, and teams have to deal with it as part of the "game". Ferrari dealt with it badly and therefore Massa lost points. Eve should not have eaten from the apple. If she had not eaten from the apple, maybe Renault would not have let Piquet Jr crash deliberately. It does not matter, she did not eat from the apple to disadvantage Massa.
The thing is, if the results of the Singapore gp get removed, the championship win we changes. As verstappen was ahead of Lewis going into Abu dabhi, by race wins, if the result changed by having the race removed, verstappen would still be championship winner, the results would have to be reverted to about 3 laps from the end if Mercedes’ wanted anything from it
The fairest outcome in those circumstances would be to classify from the lap preceeding the intervention that falsely determined the outcome of the race... ie the decision to not allow all lapped cars to pass / none to pass. This would result in the expected outcome of the race rather than the manufactured one.
Mercedes is not arguing that Abu Dabhi should not count to the championship. If Massa get's to correct the mistake that was made by the FIA in 2008, then Mercedes is arguing that the mistake that was made in Abu Dhabi by the FIA, which is not letting all cars pass the safety car or letting all cars remain between VER and HAM, can also be correxted, which means Lewis Hamilton wins by default. No deduction of points is needed. The FIA already admitted that it was a human error, so then the FIA can correct the human error in hindsight, if Massa wins his case.
@@EH1942how is that fair? The Fia made the mistake nothing to do with the drivers. With that logic you could go back to any race where the Fia made a mistake. And they're plenty of those.
The fact that if Justice was served, F1 would be in shambles, is proof F1 is just a sham with people pulling strings from the sidelines with zero accountability. Hard to see these races now as anything more than WWE in cars. It's a joke series at this point, just meant to entertain the masses rather than being a competitive sport.
The biggest problem with the 2008 situation is, while the crash clearly gave an unfair advantage to Renault, we simply have no way of knowing if Massa was going to successfully finish the race in the lead. There are so many factors that could have lead to him losing positions or the race towards the end without the safety car, that it is impossible to judge beyond doubt that he was the deserved winner of the race. This isn't going anywhere.
@@T-CainesZR1 Which Ferrari did. Not Renault. It was still in their control. How do we know they wouldn't have done that during the pitstop regardless of the safety car?
The other problem is that if Massa had won the championship, McLaren were going to go to court to challenge the result in Spa. McLaren would very likely have won their challenge so Massa does not have a case.
@@AlexHurtadoVox Then McLaren would have challenged the result in Spa as they intended to if Massa was ahead in the championship after Brazil and would have won that challenge. Not that hard to understand.
I'm a Ferrari fan. 2008 was devastating, that moment of epic joy just for it to get crushed on the last corner. So how did Felipe feel? I literally can't even imagine and it's clear it haunts him and always will. I get it. That said if Ferrari didn't bungle the pit stop then none of it would've happened. Sure the pit stop shouldn't have happened, caught em by surprise etc but still...no one else screwed up, and this is the pinnacle of motorsports. You should be able to handle it. Its like 2021: Despite various legit issues ultimately if Lewis didn't hit the magic button he's champion. The tire snafu in Hungary his poor quali (thus race) in Monaco. Lewis/Merc made more errors and in a close fight that can be what tips it. Just like how Merc fans need to accept this and not project/lash out Massa needs to accept it was his team's fault.
For good reason. A driver was denied his historic championship because the race director decided to change F1 from a sport to a movie and wanted an exciting finish.
@@t.w.falconer3952 I agree nothing can or should be done now, but I also can understand why a team or driver who has actual skin in the game would still feel wronged. Besides I'm a Ferrari fan, so I'm enjoying the recent victory!
Problem with legally challenging the results of a sporting event is you're always going to have to base it off a hypothetical alternate timeline. Lawsuits need to be based on what you can factually prove, and doing the former sets a very dangerous precedent.
Yep. There would've been a whole season that followed and decisions made to protect leads or try to gain one. It's not like this happened on the last lap of the last race with only the FIA making the mistake or anything... :)
Asking to nullify the results of 1 manipulated race is reasonable....if it were 2009. Massa sat on his hands, he should be 1x World Champion, but he took too long. 2021 isn't even a story because if you nullified the results, Max would still win and if they Red Flagged or let lapped cars pass a lap sooner, there are scenarios for both drivers to win.
lol no it doesn't. There is no changing of points on what would have happened if there wasn't a crash. The only thing that happens you rightfully nullify the results and none of the points count which is what is being asked and how such a thing would be handled. To make his case financially, the only thing he must do is compare to the sponsorships Hamilton results in the year after as well as other WDC winners of the time, Button, Alonso, Vettel and Kimi.
Trying to link Massa's case with others doesn't make much sense to me. The point is that FIA/F1 bosses knew about it at a time they should have cancelled it. It's black and white. Other cases were about interpretation of rules, incidents, etc. Especially 2021 where they had an agreement with F1 and the teams to try to end it under green. The "human error" was caused by the rules not beeing clear enough. Gray area. I don't think results will be changed. But I believe Massa will win the civil case anyway. Any sane judge will rule in his favor even if that doesn't make him the official champion. You could say he pretty much already won it.
how is it black and white the race should have been cancelled? to everyone but Renault it was just a race with a safety car, it was the same for everyone
They would not have cancelled the race, that is simply not how the rules work, and it would not make any sense to cancel everybody's results. As far as all non-Renault drivers are concerned, the crash was just a crash like any other crash. It did lead to Massa effectively being taken out BY HIS OWN TEAM, but that would also have happened if the crash had not been deliberate. The proper response would have been disqualification of Alonso from that race (or even: disqualification of Renault from the whole season, like how Schumacher was disqualified years earlier). It does not matter that Alonso may not have been aware of the plan (but likely he was aware of it), he was part of Renault and Renault's behaviour deserved the greatest possible punishment.
I disagree Masa has every right to go after what was in effect a planned effort to not do the right thing. He should have been reinstated based on the Renault deception. I love Alonso but he won something that he had no right to win.
If the 2008 Singapore GP result was overturned ( and with it the 2008 WDC) was overturned this will open a real can of worms and both the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and other championships such as 1989, 1990 , 1994 and 1997 (Where Mclaren and Williams colluded at the final race) could have their championship results altered. and that is why Massa has no chance of winning this.
Agreed, the 2021 is most recent and likely would fall inside whatever "time period" they decide is admissible. That one should be changed, as the FIA basically got it all wrong per their own rules and the outcome was dictated due to that. It will open a can of worms to be sure. I also don't know why the 2021 controversy was dropped so quickly.
You realize that no matter what scenario you play through about AD that is in any way shape or form realistically possible, Max still wins that title, right?
@@thewoode1050yes. The same Max Verstappen who was awarded a "win" in Belgium where there was 3 laps behind the safety car. That's the only reason he would win on countback. What should've happened. In the immediate aftermath of the race the cars reclassified as they crossed the line on the penultimate lap due to the SC rules being bent way out of contention.
@@xpwn3rx AD 2021 is a completely different scenario. There was certainly a mistake that the race director (and as such the FIA) made, there was no collusion by teams in the race to alter the results of that race. Singapore 2008 is a completely different scenario and the result should 100% be thrown out. Maybe even the whole championship that season should just be considered null and void. Also, no matter what happens with AD 2021, the result will favour Max in the end. There is a 0% chance that the actual result of the race would be changed. The only thing that might happen is the result being thrown out, which would still result in Max winning the title.
@@mulvihillmatt How would any outcome favor Max? The only outcome I can think of that does is the current status. Correct for any of the mistakes and missteps and the outcome changes. Agree on that there was a lot going into 2008, data changing hands that shouldn’t have, teams crashing intentionally to win races. The FIA has control over the FIA and can reprimand teams but their own employee screwed up 2021 to an unbelievable degree.
Mercedes have nothing to gain by re-opening 2021, they literally chose not to sue because they knew they wouldn’t get their desired result Meanwhile the Crashgate case iscompletely different
I think the most important difference between 08 singapore and AD21 is that it could be argued that in 08 the sporting body worked together to hide another competitor manipulated the field of play in an unfair manner. In AD21, the competitors were all on the level on the field of play but the sport had a setup that basically gave one referee (arguably) unclear or ambiguous power to make a call that ended up disadvantaging one driver compared to their competitor. Neither result should be changed imo from a technical standpoint, but also from the standpoint of a sporting fan. Sometimes the run goes against you but over a 20+ event calendar the drivers should be able to overcome whatever luck is present, and sometimes it’s okay if a champion is controversial or debatable
You can't fault Masi for trying to let the race end in racing (unless he created an unsafe situation, which he did not). Lewis lost because Latifi crashed, but Latifi's crash was not a deliberate attempt to screw over Lewis. (But imagine it was Perez that had crashed instead of Latifi... ouch!!) I fully agree with your point on luck. Abu Dhabi was really bad luck for Hamilton but over the whole season it was just one of a many such lucky/unlucky events. If Abu Dhabi had been the first race of the season (with the same events happening), nobody would have talked about it when Max had won the championship at the end of the season with the same point difference.
I agree.. 08 is not the same as AD21. The key point is that they knew about the deliberate crash and again deliberately ignored or played it as if they don't know..
You can’t be punishing Hamilton for the FIA failure in 2008 and you can’t punish max for the FIAs failure in 2021. It’s done no point of unearthing it. Move on
Aidan Millward did a pretty good video about this. He looked back to see if there was any previous incidents that could set a legal precedent, of which there are a few. What he found was that if anything was done about this now, it would likely end up annulling the race as involved personnel have already been punished. Either way, it wouldn't help Massa's championship hopes, just like all the other things that went against him at the time.
FIA is one of the worst and corrupt sports organizations. Along with the IOC, the NFL, although I still love football, and whatever that one with soccer, which I have no interest anyway. The greed in these orgs are incredible.
I think the main difference everyone is missing is that Singapore 2008 was not just a referee error, it was a FIXED race The entire race was predetermined by Renault and they didn’t care what happened to the rest of the grid. The problem this causes is that the results are illegitimate, not just Alonso’s win, but ALL of it. Rosberg’s Williams was never going to be 2nd ffs Massa exposing the FIA for their disgraceful management is a W And there is no way Alonso didn’t know
Yes, Horner was somehow able to interrupt Toto's continuous stream of requests. Not unlapping would have been very unusual. The real problem was that team leaders were allowed to talk to Masi. (And I guess we agree on that.)
@@lb8130 the nature of truth has more to do with believe than you give credence to, even most objective scientific truth gets overwritten eventually. Anyway there were dozens of intentional benefits and detriments that favoured Red Bull and hampered Mercedes, including giving Max the Spa win.
@@peanutnutter1You can make a case that George crashing in Imola to save Hamilton from being a lap down could have also been "intentionally" orchestrated by merc to keep Hamilton in the title fight. Mercedes got away with a lot too and kept themselves in the title fight by taking out their main competitors. Hamilton and Mercedes lost it because of Baku and Monaco. It's as simple as that.
brits being brits... Massa wants the race excluded, if that happens then Mercedes will look for AD21 excluded as well, which, if you are not brit and think about it, will not give anything to Hamilton.
One championship was thrown away when the driver in question drove off with the fuel hose attached. The other clearly was lost due to FIA error. Cut and dried in both cases and neither will get changed.
FIA error haha good one, Hamilton only had to defend for one lap on a track notoriosly difficult for overtaking. He couldnt hold ne for one lap in the best car, even without DRS. His supposed hero Senna wouldnt have let that happen.
I think this article misses the point. Firstly, I would say there is enough difference in he circumstances of the two incidents covered. Massa lost as a consequence of cheating by another team. Lewis lost as a consequence of rules that were open to some interpretation being misapplied. That's not to say the later is not worth reopening, just that it is different enough. With respect to the statute of limitations. This is irrelevant. It's just an FIA rule. It has no legal basis. Massa is using the legal system to get the FIA to reopen this issue. If they don't he will go to court. If they do, it's because they want to avoid this playing out in the courts. I think this is about who blinks first. The 2021 case would not have any legal basis for dispute so there's no point trying that route.
Hoy boy. Look all I'm saying is if Ferrari wasn't Ferrari then this wouldn't be an issue. Double DNF at the start don't help, their blunder with the fuel was Ferrari's fault. And with Hamilton he could have avoided that drama in abu dhabi had he not thrown away the win in Baku by pressing the wrong button. These rules are in place. Why change or challenge them now? Ferrari could have done so once Massa recovered and Mercedes had the opportunity to do so but chose not to. It's all very silly.
I really struggle to see the connection between Singapore 2008 and Abu Dhabi 2021. In 2008 we had a premeditated plan to fix the race results, and we had a trial that demonstrated that the race was consciously manipulated. In 2021 we had none of that because even though Masi messed everything up, there was no premeditation, no intention to fix the race results. It was "just" an awfully messy handling of a situation. Unless we find out that Masi and RedBull had set up some sort of plan beforehand to give Verstappen the championship, this all is dumb nonsense.
If it turned out Latifi was paid by Red Bull to crash, then Hamilton would really have a case (but likely it would still be too late, haha). Luckily it was not Perez but Latifi who crashed and nobody believes that the crash was deliberate.
Yeah when you look at front camera angles it shows Prost did to Senna what MS did to JV at Jerez 97 nearly identical. Yet in 89 the passer get banned in 97 the defender got banned.
Realize that Senna had to win in Japan and Australia to take the title. He didn't win in Australia so it didn't matter. And he would still be disqualified for getting outside assistance to start the car.
If a Team cheats, then that Team should be disqualified. Hence Alonso loses the win, which gives Lewis more points. There's no way that the Race should be abandoned. No-one else did anything wrong!!!
Why would it? I’m sure Mercedes would love to hear Woolf’s voice from the 2021 race replayed in court telling the Race Director on multiple occasions not to deploy a Safety Car. I’ll just point out that it was obvious any car crashing in the hotel section of Abu Dhabi was going to create a Safety Car (as Perez’s Racing Point electrical breakdown the year before had done). A 5 lap period was marginal to restart the race & the marshal’s were quick. The Race Director (the human error as FIA now call him) was harangued by the team personnel, initially Woolf, but also Wheatley from Red Bull chewing up his decision time in the peculiar horse trading Masi had been practicing all season. When Hamilton won in Saudi Arabia there was no protest from Woolf about the race direction (which Horner said was like listening to a local market trader). Come a failed race strategy and he got him sacked behind the scenes and hasn’t stopped with the innuendo since. Over the weekend of that very exciting finale I rewatched both the Sakir and Abu Dhabi races from 2020 and I could see exactly why Woolf was worried that evening, not because of an overwhelming sense of fair play, but because he knew any car stopped at the hotel within the last 10 laps could kill their race, after Perez’s had held Hamilton on track. He also knew the race director was weak and exploited that by interfering with the safe running of the 2021 race. As a fan of F1 since 1976, I think this story is done. I’ve seen shadier things done in F1, but this had no ulterior motive, just a breakdown that Woolf partially initiated.
I couldn’t have said this better myself. Merc played it far too safe, they miscalculated, and paid for it at Abu Dhabi 2021. The Singapore 2008 scandal is a totally different kettle of fish, and it’s immensely disingenuous for people to think otherwise.
Massa shouldn't be given the title, but he should be compensated. The quote from Ecclestone: "We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions." Maybe he's wrong about the rules, maybe he's talking out of his ass, (he, of course, claims now to not remember saying this) but if true, they knowingly disregarded their own procedure to protect themselves instead of doing their duty. I'm not disputing that Ferrari fucked up, but I don't see how to conclude that Massa wasn't screwed when we have quotes saying "this, specifically, is how we screwed him", and it's perfectly fair to seek damages over that.
Yea, about that "absurdity" of Felipe Massa's claims... I'd be inclined to agree with you, IF the governing body in question would have vowed to improve. Instead they have resorted to "p*ss taking" of the highest order. Two main actors in this sordid affair, after being "banned for life" from the sport, have not only been "welcomed back into the fold" by Formula 1 but also promoted to the highest echelons. Pat Symonds is now the "Chief Technical Officer" and Flavio Briatore an "ambassador for the sport". Sorry, but this is akin to the UCI proudly presenting Lance Armstrong as an "ambassador of the sport" and Eufemiano Fuentes as their Chief Medical Officer. Imagine how Felipe must feel seeing these pr*cks strutting up 'n down the F1 paddock again. Formula 1 must not get away with such blatant disregard for decency. If this opens the door for other drivers to seek justice in courts, so be it. But they don't have anyone but themselves to blame for what's coming their way. Go, Felipe, give 'em hell!
All this shit over Abu Dhabi yet intentionally missing the apex at copse to bin Max for a basically free victory is completely unquestioned. Write off both races then the WDC is still unchanged, I don't believe anyone actually thinks Lewis drove better that year.
I think the proper thing to do would have been to throw that race out and void its results. You can't say "Massa would have scored points" or any other scenario because nobody knows what would have actually happened had Renault not conspired to win the race. Therefore, it would only be fair to exclude the race entirely and award the championship based on the rest of the season's results. However, it's probably too late to change anything now, hence I suspect that this should be a civil case. And since the FIA actually covered it up, they are the ones who should face punishment. I'd love to hear someone like Legal Eagle give their perspective on it, but I think Massa should go after those in charge and seek compensation including lost wages.
That's literally what Massa is doing. He's suing them in civil court for lost income including wages, sponsorship deals, etc. You've literally just outlined his actual case. It's just no one in F1 media is actually talking about the real case. Because they just want clickbait headlines.
Excluding the whole race absolutely wouldn’t be fair to all the drivers that didn’t do anything wrong. Had they disqualified Renault / Alonso result, Lewis would get even more points in that race (and retain the championship). I understand Massa’s pain, he should be compensated for FIA wrongdoings, but his idea of excluding the whole race (the race where Ferrari made a blunder in the pits, how convenient) is just ridiculous.
@@ripmork The moment a car crashed purposefully, the entire race was nullified. You cannot award anything fairly once that happened, because as I stated in the original comment, we can't know what would have happened had Piquet not crashed. If anything, it's actually MORE fair to the other drivers to just invalidate the race entirely instead of what is essentially guessing what the outcome should have been. I'm guessing you're a Hamilton fan.
Go ahead and throw out Abu Dhabi 2021, Max still wins on count back at that point. Max had more wins prior to that race than Hamilton had and they were even on points.
@@ktcool4660 But there's no way to know how things would have played out had those laps been run normally. You can't just shorten a race years after the fact, excluding the result is the only fair option and even then it isn't going to happen because no rules were actually broken.
@@pyromcr "But there's no way to know how things would have played out had those laps been run normally" there should not have been racing laps. Masi broke the rules the race should have ended under safety car.
@@ktcool4660 Except the FIA say he didn't actually break any rules because allowing lapped cars to overtake wasn't required. He could have started the race again even earlier with more cars ahead of Max, no way to know what would have happened. No way to know how a red flag situation like they love to do now would have played out either.
@@pyromcr " FIA say he didn't actually break" they literally said Masi broke the rules said & " allowing lapped cars to unlap" is absolutely necessary. You can perform all the mental you want to justify the blatant breaking of rules by Masi. If Masi followed the rules the race should have ended behind the safety car like Monza 2022. Invalid all the laps after safety car is an easy slam dunk ruling.
I wonder had Abu Dhabi been, say, the third race of the season anyone would remember or be that bothered for all these years. Just because it was the last race everyone goes crazy.
It would have probably just ended under a caution flag then, because the RD would have not been concerned with a big movie dramatic finish. That's precisely why it bothers people. The race rules need to be followed constantly, or amended and known to all, whether it's the first race of the season or the last or it's not really a true sport anymore, it's sports entertainment, and F1 has never been about that.
Had any other driver crashed at that same corner and lap, the same circumstances would have carried out. Renault "race fixed", knowing the rules at the time would greatly benefit Alonso if someone were to crash at that moment, so they made sure of it. Every competitor was presented with the same opportunity in the race and some did better than others, so the fact the race happened is legitimate, but Alonso still being classified as first is questionable. If Massa gets anything other than nothing, F1 would be on for a very slippery slope of lawyers everywhere.
Exactly, Alonso was given an unfair advantage by his own team (and should have been disqualified), but for all other racers this was just a regular crash as so often happens in F1. Part of the game.
@@ronald3836 That would've had to have happened right after the race. Any later, the only course of action for the FIA would've been to scrap the race results entirely.
@@ronald3836 Except that is a regulation. The regulations in 2008 said clearly that if a competitor cheats, then the race results must be voided. Not "everyone who benefitted gets a penalty". The rules said in 2008 that if anyone cheated the race results were null and void and would not count. So yes, that regulation does exist, you're just ignorant.
The only thing absurd is this video and the reasoning it follows. Massa‘s legal action is - though very late - quite justified. Whether he gets his way or not it’s another matter altogether. Your line of argument would mean that victims of criminal actions should relinquish their claims to justice. If this case sets a precedent then it’d be a good precedent: cheating cannot get you the world championships.
We don't know what would have happened if Renault had been caught earlier - it's unpredictable and we can't assume the results would have stayed the same over several races. I just don't see how Massa's case CAN change the result. What he can do, however, is sue to FIA and F1 for hiding the issue under the carpet. The FIA has to operate correctly. Likewise, whilst Msrcedes shouldn't aim to change the results of 2021, the FIA should have been held to account
This. Legally, the 2008 championship cannot be changed. Legally. It is impossible for any court on the planet to make the FIA change the result. No one on the planet has that power. Massa and his lawyers absolutely know this. They want compensation for the tens or possible hundreds of millions of dollars that Massa would have received had he won the title in 2008.
I'd have to imagine given Piquet sr. altered Max Mosley at the Brazilian GP the result would still stand as Japan and China was run under the results of Singapore re-the championship.
This is silly. Even if Renault's cheating had been proven early on, let's say by the end of the race itself, all the FIA could have done would be to disqualify Alonso, pushing Hamilton up from 3rd place to 2nd place (and Massa finishing 12th) giving him 2 more points, meaning he wouldn't even have to pass Glock at the last race to be champion. Since it is absolutely impossible to predict how the race would have happened if there was no intentional crash by Piquet (other accidents triggering another safety car, yet another error from Ferrari's mechanics during pit stop, or anything else), victory would never have been given to Massa anyway only based on his position before de crash. This is why when a driver is penalize for crashing into another driver, he receive a penalty, but the victim isn't given it's original place.
This will start a domino effect if it passes. Lewis can then contest for 2021. Does it mean Schumacher’s title could be taken back? What about the Senna title loss and title win the next year?
So far no one said Masi made the decisions to deliberately help verstappen, nor Latif crashed on purpose or FIA knew one of the two were doing anything on purpose, same goes for the actions of Senna and Prost ( funny enough in this case the championships would just change order)
@@rogerarruda3674 yeah haha.. they’ll just exchange championships. But with the Masi one they could contest on the grounds that FIA fired him because he was wrong maybe
@@BrandoN-ie1np Yeah Verstappen would still be WDC if Abu Dhabi was voided because he had more wins, whereas if Singapore was voided Massa would take the 2008 WDC.
I rarely disagree with Edd Straw, but The Race should stop commenting on legal issues you clearly do not understand. The 2008 controversy, and Massa’s claim to have the results re-examined and potentially overturned, has no bearing on the outcome of 2021 Abu Dhabi whatsoever. If Massa succeeds, it will only be on the basis that he was denied the opportunity to make an informed decision whether to challenge the results of the championship within the timeframe imposed under the FIA’s international sporting code, as a result of a conspiracy of silence involving the governing body itself. The argument being advanced is that the FIA may not rely on rules of its own creation as a shield against potential legal action where those rules have been exploited by a conspiracy of deception in which it was itself complicit - a conspiracy which was designed and intended to elevate the interests of the FIA (and those of the other co-conspirators) over their mutual responsibility to the drivers and teams to ensure the fair adjudication of the underlying fraud on the sport. In other words, if Massa can establish that there was a material non-disclosure involving the FIA, with the intention of preventing (or delaying) him from seeking a remedy he was otherwise entitled to pursue, the FIA cannot now rely on Rules they themselves have written which impose limits on the availability of that remedy (a deadline for filing an objection) as a shield against potential legal action. The law of equity does not permit a defendant to profit from their own deception and such a defence will not succeed. To the extent there is no allegation of a similar conspiracy to withhold the relevant facts from Mercedes regarding the 2021 Abu Dhabi race, there is no comparison between the two incidents. As a result, even if Massa’s challenge is successful, it will not stand as a precedent for a similar challenge to the 2021 Abu Dhabi race. Only those who completely fail to appreciate that distinction would think one challenge risks making the other more likely.
It's not a "claim of conspiracy" it literally was a conspiracy that's now out loud and open. Something that Toto would have a little harder time proving. There is a difference in making a bad official call and actually keeping quite about misconduct.
Toto making that baseless accusation should and likely would result in Toto being banned from F1. It is fine to be critical of Masi, but there is no place for absurd and baseless insinuations about his integrity. And you better lose your tin foil head and start preparing for the real world.
the biggest difference here is one of these is matchfixing, and one is an officiating error. not exactly the same situation. comparing them solely because the end result benefits you, is massively oversimplifying sporting law. which is exactly why toto is just following it "with interest", and nothing more.
Annul the results of the Singapore GP. Recalculate the World Championship (WC) points. Award both Massa and Hamilton the WC title. If there are new claimants to 2nd and 3rd position, they should also be awarded the joint 2nd and 3rd places. This also includes the financial rewards, with interest. How about that ?
How the Abu Dhabi GB result hasn't already been overturned is disgusting. Not just for the rules not being correctly applied after the safety car, but also RB overspending that year and not being punished with a points deduction as the rules state. The FIA has no credibility.
I know the case is absurd but would love to see a drama where Massa wins the case and then the real drama start.. FIA fighting cases in literally every part of the world😂😂
If the results of Abu Dhabi 2021 are thrown out, then Max still wins the driver championship. They went into the final race tied on points and Max had more wins. I'm not sure why Mercedes are even thinking of fighting to get the race results overturned. That was Max's year to win. Had Hamilton not bumped him off at Silverstone, he would have been ahead in Abu Dhabi and we wouldn't even be here right now. I want Massa to receive recognition for the manipulation that cost him the title, but they can't overturn the results because of the precedent it would set.
Agree, although because it wasn't "race-fixing" in AD2021, they wouldn't throw out the race, they would just call the race from the last finished lap behind the safety car, meaning Lewis would be P1. It is like in Australia 2023, where they rearranged the grid after the red flag restart because they had to go off of the safety car lines. That is why they are looking at it so closely, because the FIA basically admitted that the race should have ended under safety car and thus, should have never restarted.
The problem is that Ferrari screwed up and the fuel rig went with Massa and you can't blame that on the nefarious actions of Renault, Briatore and Piquet Jnr. The fact is that what happened occured and Massa just has to deal with it just as Toto and Lewis have to deal with Abu Dhabi 2021 which isn't anywhere near as nefarious as 2008 because that issue is just that Toto thinks the race should have been red flagged and Lewis declared champion instead of having the race finish as it did.
@@sheeshman9713 Nullify it anyway. Hamilton wouldn't get the championship but it would be some form of justice. A honest acknowledgment of the FIA's screw up
Massa has more of a case than Hamilton and Mercedes would. Let's look at WHY Massa is taking legal action. It's not because Renault cheated, or race control made a mistake, but instead because the FIA had already understood the race had been manipulated during the season and decided to not take action until the following year, thus making it, at the time, impossible to overturn or nullify the results. The negligence is where Massa may have some ground to maybe not overturn the results or nullify Singapore 2008, but at least recoup lost earnings from the actions of the FIA. Best case scenario for Felipe is they nullify the results from the Singapore Grand Prix, and with that it changes the championship result in favor of Massa. The most unlikely situation would be to disqualify Alonso from the Grand Prix and alter the results of the race all together. So for a case for Hamilton, they're not going to retroactively change the results of the event. They can acknowledge race control's mistake and nullify the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix results, which would mean Verstappen is STILL champ. There's very little chance they're going to remove a lap or change the results to as if it had ended under safety car, that's not how racing works. tl;dr Massa has a shot b/c of the FIA's negligence and the fact nullifying the results would change the outcome of the championship, Hamilton does not because nullifying the results of that race would not change the outcome of the championship.
Man, the British really just can't get over 2021. With Abu Dhabi gone Max still wins the championship with nine wins vs eight. You all need to move on.
Don't upset anyone this way, get to keep their feet under the table like good boys and girls. The pundits are the same, they got rid of the ones who dare speak their mind
"It sets a precedent" No it doesnt! Thats the best part! If you take away AB2021, Max was already ahead, and thus, is still world champion! And obviously, that makes The Michael the only seven times world champion, which I'm very happy about.
So you want Massa to win his 2008 case (spoiler alert: he fucking won't) because it will make Schumacher the only 7 time world champion and NOT because it's justice? Fuck off.
If the SC can be changed then Hamilton cutting the chicane on lap 1 should also get him a 5 second penalty which would lose him the race since it would have to finish under SC a lap before the actual end
@@letsaddsomesubs5943 I am saying that both were wrong decisions so if one can be overturned why shouldn’t the other? Yes Masi‘s fault had a more direct impact, but thinking about it, a penalty for Hamilton was arguably fair and the SC itself was a correct decision
so what about brazil 2021 or jeddah 2021 when max clearly outbraked himself so much that he didnt even make the corner and still kept the position and what about when he braked checked lewis and lewis lost his endplate or what about monza where max went for a gap that wasnt there
Stop comparing these two. They are not the same. First of all: I'm not saying that Massa will win, or that he even has a case. In fact i, i don't think they do. But lets pretend that Massa actually wins his case, and is crowned 2008 champion. 1) Massas case is based on the argument of FIA corruption (intentionally hiding the fact they knew about race manipulation). Abu Dhabi isn't about that, despite Mercedes fans claim to the contrary. We know what happened. You can like it or dislike it, but the Stewards determined that what happened in the race was valid within the rules. So since there is no evidence of corruption, Mercedes still doesn't have a case. 2) Mercedes had the option to appeal beyond the appeal they made to the stewards, but they decided not to. By forfeiting that priviledge, they have no argument for the case being reopened, since they - by their own inaction - therefore accept the result. The only recource Mercedes has for AD21 is if new evidence turns up, the same as what happened here, which sparked Massas legal investigation. Then they can argue that they didn't appeal back then, because the evidence wasn't available at the time. But other than that, these two are not comparable in any way. Massa winning his case isn't gonna help Mercedes in any way.
Not a member of the Max or Lewis fan clubs, but I wholeheartedly believe that if Mercedes had made a decent enough car to compete for wins and/or titles 2021 wouldn’t be as relevant as it still is. Also, if that Abu Dhabi race was annulled, (what I’m guessing would be the most likely scenario) wouldn’t Max still be the title winner anyway?
The favoured argument is to just void the laps where the rules weren’t applied Otherwise you start opening cans of worms like demoting Norris in the 2021 WDC and promoting Leclerc. If the entire race was nullified
Massa honestly doesn't have a case. Yes, there were shenanigans; but ultimately it was Ferrari's mistake that cost him points, even if the opportunity for mistake was caused intentionally. Even if this isn't thrown out, there are too many confounding factors to say that "this single action lost him the championship". Merc is definitely paying attention though; not necessarily to the result, but to whether or not the case even gets to the courtroom. If it does, it means they can pursue 2021. And of all the controversies, 2021 is by far the most clear cut. With the other "whatabout"isms, there were confounding factors or some action was taken against offending parties in the name of fairness. With 2021...the Race Director flat out got it wrong. And the FIA did nothing to correct it. If they were smart, they would have admitted that the race results were tampered with and annulled the results of the race, giving Max the WDC on tiebreaker. But their inaction has opened the door for Merc to say "Look, the FIA officially endorsed a classification that they knew was tampered with." That is a lot more clear and damaging than "if Team X didn't do Y, then I would've had the chance for Z" Regardless, If Merc does take this to court, discovery could be quite spicy. As the closed-door deals and communications will need to be turned over.
6:30 The problem is that you can't really ever say "this cost xyz the championship". Had Hamilton won that championship people would point to Silverstone that year where Ham eliminated it's rival and went on to win the race and would try to spin something from that. There is always something. But in the end of the day I really feel like I can't remember a championship where I would say the champion of that year did not deserve to become champion.
While I understand your argument, the thing is, two rivals coming together because they're both fighting for the same piece of tarmac is something that happens almost every weekend and is a part of the F1 experience. However seeing a Race Director manipulate the rules to create a condition is something that was entirely new and is not a part of the sport.
Damn, life really gets back full circle it proved during the abudhabi 2021. I saw silverstone and multiple other times hamilton ruining Max's race and still avoid penalties. Silverstone he just got a time penalty kf a few seconds and sochi and other times max hurt hamilton's race he got grid penalties. It was peak humour for me back then. Abu dhabi 2021, hamilton cut conner and took unfair advantage in the first lap and didnt give the position back. Max dwindled back. I think it was God who helped Max. Cheeky Lewis, with all due respect he is one of the best on only on track but in mind, couldnt turn things around him that time
Spot on mate, and let's not forget Imola, he would have been a lap down, but luckily, a red flag was soon flying, allowing Hamilton to climb to 2nd. And even more importantly, how the FIA yielded to the intense pressure by Mercedes about rear flexi wings. Wings that were perfectly legal and within the limits, but now suddenly we had a technical directive. All because the Mercs were at a disadvantage. Oh, and what about the pit stop changes? Yeah, the Mercs were still being beaten by the Bulls pit stop crew, so something had to change...
Going back in time to change events that happened is problematic at best. How many other small events that if a different outcome occurred, would Massa have been fighting for the championship in the first instance. The permutations are literally countless.
A civil court does not have the jurisdiction to award a title. They can rule that Massa was harmed financially through an overtly fraudulent act, and award restitution and damages, but they can't also say "You're the 2008 champion". Aside from this obvious fact, there's the issue that the two cases are dramatically different. Massa's case revolves around a coverup. In 2021, the facts were known to everyone all around the world. All this is doing is fanning the flames of controversy. Are we going to go back and rewrite the ending of every controversial race? smh.
A civil court absolutely has the jurisdiction to award the title and tell Massa he's the 2008 world champion. What you mean is they can't force the FIA to recognise that decision. If you said that, that's true. They can't make the FIA change the history books. But they absolutely have jurisdiction to tell Massa he's the 2008 world champion.
Abu Dhabi 2021 - although the race director made an error but the results could not be deleted only 1 lap because the race was not in the red flag. Singapore 2008, the culprit is there and obviously is Renault, so only they should be punished.
The race director followed the rule book down to a tea, it clearly stated any cars not all cars could unlap themselves, Verstappen won the world title fair and square in 2021, Hamilton won the 2008 title by a literal stroke of luck and manipulation
@@zxr-cade2026 Your bias is showing. Max was fantastic in 2021, but to claim Hamilton was champion because of luck in the same sentence is ridiculous. Also, show me where the rules have ever been applied that way before. Maybe it has before, but we all know how unlapping cars actually works
@@kennethporter992 you are forgetting that all teams decided, before the race, that the race should end with racing. Only no.1 and no.2 (max and ham) mattered. Masi did exactly what the teams wanted. Mercedes knows this and didnt bring ham in for fresh tires. If anything blame them for deciding this before the race and then not following up with it during the SC...
Part of the excitement about sports is that we take it as if it was fair. Whenever errors happen, they should be rectified. Both for Massa and Hamilton. F1 should take it with pride and acknowledge it’s not perfect and open to continued improvement.
15 years on, and this is a depressing situation for Massa. Hard not to think he ultimately got the short end of the stick in his career, considering he was marginally successful and a descent guy. 2008 must have felt bitter to Massa, with retirements while leading races, that event in Singapore, and the way he lost the championship at home after doing everything right. Then Came Hungary 2009, when he had two accidents subsequently; being smashed on the head by a 1 kg spring, then torpedoing the barriers head on full blast. He did soldier on, while it was clear he no longer had the edge, those 1/100 seconds needed to win, but as damaged goods as he was, he did relatively well in 2014, and lasted an impressive 6 years after his "accident". He and Chris Amon must be in the pinnacle of F1 bad luck, I mean, among the ones that did not get killed.
Thanks for the summary, I learned some new things.
Sadly. History has never been rewritten and 15 years later will not be again. If its not about money then what is it, because pride cometh before a fall
whilst i feel sad for Philipe that one incident was not the only incident that occurred during that year and therefore not the only reason why he lost the WC
I get it it hurts but coulda woulda shoulda will not change history
even so, no one questioned FIA’s decision to hide this trash. F1 is a show, not a sport, but echoes consequences. LH won the WC that year and that’s it. What kind of reparation could do justice to the ones that got really hurt? On the other side the title, the awards are not written law, are just rules from a corporation.
@@ryche.rising Whaat. Where are you going with that statement because you sure are about to open a can of worms
i mean, you can't just let your championship rival lap you at silverstone meanwhile youve spun 5 times
I don’t understand how Alonso was the only one in the team that didn’t know what truly happened until everyone else found out 🤷♂️
My opinion is that he was in on it. Why would he agree to what was a bad strategy after starting 15th without something to help him jump up the field and force everyone else to pit under the safety car. He just played dumb
@@Ayresii1995 Shocking xD
@@Ayresii1995I don't think so all he cares about was racing at the time
He knew. Renault had a team briefing before the race and discussed the possibilities with the drivers. Briatore himself said that "Nando accepted the strategy". Let's not forget that Alonso and Briatore are still best friends to this day.
@@Ayresii1995yep. Of course he knew.
I don’t see how it is Massa’s job to protect F1 or FIA from toxic scandals that they allow and sometimes create and refuse to undo.
Lmfao that was literally never said. He has ZERO chance of winning. All hes doing is putting his own name in Mud and getting himself black listed from the paddock forever.
No its not, nor is it anyone's job but Ferrari to make sure the refueling rig is removed after refueling.
@@1964mcqueen Regardless, fixing a race should be enough reason to get it canceled
that, my friend, is the center of this imbroglio.
@@andredanieldasilvaleite3672 Precedent?
As a Brazilian, I'd love to have seen Massa win in 2008 - but I don't see the results being changed, and don't think they should after this much time. Maybe have something within the rules where the appeals may be granted after the time period specified in the Right of Review section, due to extraordinary events, but not to exceed X amount of time.
Have you ever heard of "cold case." Justice should have no time limit.
@@NoToBigBro Yeah for murders lmao, this is like going back to the england vs argentina world cup match and ruling out the hand of god goal. There's a lot of luck in sports, mistakes are made all the time but a final decision has to be made there and then or they could be argued forever. Massa was on the bad side of luck that time as much as Hamilton was on the bad side of it in 2021 Abu Dhabi. Shit happens, move on and don't cry about it 15 years later.
Yes I've heard of it. Cold cases are cases that still remain open (were never shut) - it doesn't fit this situation since it was ruled shortly thereafter. I think this would be more about reopening a closed case, rather than a "cold case." Good point though! @@NoToBigBro
@@jacob3936 Well said.
aquela temporada inteira foi uma vergonha, 10x pior que 2021. A unica diferença é que 2021 foi na ultima corrida e o pessoal de memória fraca só consegue lembrar disso. 2008 foi ridículo de um ponto de vista administrativo, legal e desportivo, uma das temporadas mais mal administradas em questão de corrida.
I get why Massa is upset but in the end changing the 2008 WDC results (which won’t happen anyways) would only punish Hamilton and while he indirectly profited off of Crash Gate he had absolutely nothing to do with the manipulation and shouldn’t be punished for it. Really sucks what the Renault team did and you can’t tell me that Alonso didn’t knew anything about it.
Massa profited off of Lewis penalty in Spa same year. Let's look into that
Also, Ferrari was being Ferrari, remember Massa drove off with the fuel rig! Ferrari would’ve cocked up that race, like they do everything.
It's not that Hamilton would be punished - he profited off of what he shouldn't have in the first place. So it's taking away the unearned profit, not punishing.
That was deserved
The same goes for VER, he profited but had nothing to do with Michael Masi error or Latiffi crash.
Here's where the comparison falls short: a referee's call is always final-- but we're asking about what happens when that same referee admits years later that he made a miscall ON PURPOSE.
In this case, the "referee" is the sporting body itself in the discipline it handed out during that season.
The president of that body has admitted publicly to doing this. This is not a mistake or a bad call by one group; this is collision by the sport itself, and comparing it to 2021 or anything else is nuts.
This is completely unique as far as I'm aware.
I don't have any idea how it should get resolved, but it's infinitely more serious than this video and some commenters want to pretend.
This. The referee comes out and admits "I knew I was making the wrong call, I did so on purpose. I also profited from that decision financially". Does the guy who lost because of that decision not have the right to ask for some compensation? Also, the precedent is clear, the only action they could take would be voiding the Singapore GP. If they voided the Abu Dhabi 2021 Grand Prix, then nothing actually changes except you rob Yuki of his best ever finish. Max still wins the title. So even if Massa did get the 2008 title, Lewis couldn't get the 2021 title, as Max wins on countback anyway because he won more races that year and performed much better then Lewis did. So there's no risk of this bringing AD21 back, the only people who think that are Team LH fanboys.
+1
"the race" is biased on this situation. shame.
@@CharlesFreckbut the fia admitted they did not use the real safety car procedure on purpose? Sounds like an admition of deceit to me. Plus 2008 there is a very high chance Ferrari would have screwed massas stop anyway. He was going to be in either that lap or one of the 2 or 3 to follow so I dunno how you can say it never would have happened without the sc. I’m also pretty sure he went off later in the race by himself and lost a handful of time. And in 2021 there is just simply nothing that would have cost hamilton that race apart from an fia screw up
@@CharlesFreckit doesn't work like that on count back. Yes they can count back but they both went into that last race on the same point's. Yes max won more race's but then Lewis can call out the race that happened but didn't happen behind the safety that max got a win for. The problem is in the regulations they can't remove race's or discount them. They can only remove the wrong that was done in that race directly that changed the outcome. They would have to change massi decision count back two laps and Lewis in the winner anyway. That's going by the regulations as massi didn't even follow safety car regulations. The fact massive was then found at fault and agreed that he made a human error, they can't remove that race but discount massi mistakes and count back two laps.
@@chriscollins550There is precedent of using countback when the FIA haven’t followed procedures correctly - Brazil 2003.
Never understood why people thought AD would be deleted and Max would be champion regardless.
I’m sure even The Race did a video on the very topic and the various possible outcomes.
If they're going to do that, every team should reopen and dispute every FIA ruling since the sport started.
every team will have to find hard evidence like this one has... which is impossible
@@writwikishmam Abu Dhabi would be possible though, and there's a much bigger case against the FIA for 2021
@@NonFlyiingDutchmannope there isnt
@@SWOTHDRAyes there fucking is
@@SWOTHDRA to find hard evidence there would, which was what I was responding to. Neither case will/would be successful though.
I don't understand why the 2008 crashgate issue is even being compared to the 2021 controversy. The ONLY reason Massa is even doing anything is because he previously didn't challenge it on the assumption that the organizers didn't know about it until it was too late to challenge the results, and this is information he didn't know before the deadline to lodge a protest. The 2021 controversy is nothing like that, Mercedes complained before the award ceremony (the deadline), and they chose not to pursue it further in court. There isn't any new information that they now know that would've made them pursue it back then. That's the only possible thing that could make the two issues comparable
Finally a comment that gets it
Yes you are absolutely correct. The problem is the obvious bias that usually dominates this matter.
When was the FIA report published re the AD incident ?
The point is if the 2008 can be reversed so does the 2021. 2021 is more of open and shut case to be over turned.. but opening a box like this is gonna change alot. As much as I know the fia wronged Hamilton. I don't want results changed
@@alexandrebrito1414i think 2021 Abu Dhabi controversy still way more controversial than 2008 one.
If the last race of 2021 is annuled, Max still wins the championship and Massa's case is not going anywhere, nothing will change after 15 years...you guys really need to move on from 2021 already...
100%
If you takes Lewis 2008 title then Max should lose the 2021 title
@@alistairfannell6694Nobody is taking the 2008 title away from Lewis, Massa is still tripping from all the spinning he did in Silverstone that year...
Merc could still ask for the race to be cancelled, it's not solely about the title
That's not how it works. If the Singapore GP was nil and void, Massa wins the title. If the Abu Dhabi GP was nil and void, max still wins the title. You can't just take away his title like that
If you were to make the result of Abu Dhabi ‘21 void then max wins the championship on number of races won
Based
i don't think voiding the race is the goal, its about how the race should've ended on paper
But if you open the door and review the entire season and right all the wrongs Max is still the winner.
@@joeprice8163 lol how? he should have been black flagged in Saudi and got a penalty in Brazil
@@joeprice8163 What? Elaborate lol
If it's true that the FIA knew of the fix and did nothing, they absolutely violated their duty and Massa is right to seek damages from them.
I think changing the result is a bad idea, but Felipe is owed at least a payout for getting screwed.
the only one that gained an unfair advantage was Alonso, disqualifying him doesn't change anything
Their only duty in that case was to disqualify Renault. That's it. What are you suggesting, the race should be annulled just because Ferrari messed up its response to the crash? If they had not made the pitting error, the race would stand? How does that make sense? You can't cherry pick.
@@zelig1799 yes, Rosberg is the one that should complain. He deserves another GP win on his name.
The quote from Ecclestone:
"We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions."
Maybe he's wrong about the rules, maybe he's talking out of his ass, (he, of course, claims now to not remember saying this) but if true, they knowingly disregarded their own procedure to protect themselves instead of doing their duty.
I'm not disputing that Ferrari fucked up, but I don't see how to conclude that Massa wasn't screwed when we have quotes saying "this, specifically, is how we screwed him".
@@Slaker117 if Ecclestone wasn't just talking out his ass, someone would be able to point to the statutes/rules that says if a team cheats the whole race is cancelled
The British Media...Massa's "absurd legal case". Abu Dhabi 2021 "legit scandal", "robbery". The diference it's that, if Abu Dhabi 2021 race was also annulled, Max would still be champ.
Absolutely true. The most Mercedes could try to do is get the season entirely voided in which case no one is the Champion and Lewis stays on 7 and Max would have just 1 title courtesy of 2022
If you void the race, you run the risk of dropping/promoting other drivers in the final standings.
That’s not fair on them.
What is fair is to void the last two laps, don’t remove Max as WDC and share the trophy between the two standout drivers of the year.
@@liammcquillan7382 Mercedes Team, conveniently wants to just annul the last lap. When in reality and being fair to the rules, the race result should be all annul. Because it was an decision done during the race.
so one case where a 3rd party ruined their race with themselves also playing a part in ruining it vs organizer not following their own procedure and directly influencing the result of the race. At this point its all too late for any changes that hold any merit.
@@liammcquillan7382 it's like a Football Team, that suffers a penalty in extra time beyond the time presented by the Referee Team, that cost them an important title. They can't advocate in a Court of Law, to annul the extra time beyond the time presented by the Referee Team. But for the complete game to be annulled.
As a Verstappen fan I can understand Mercedes anger on how the last race of 2021 was handled by race direction.
But what I do not understand is why they think the potential precedent is going to make a difference. Massa’s team wants to remove the results from the singapore GP from that years championship, which makes him Champion.
But even if Mercedes get the FIA to do the same. Max will remain champion since he had more wins in 2021 and they were level on points before the Abu Dhabi GP.
Same argument I have made on some other videos. If SG gets canceled, AD should be the same thing. Even if it was a governing body making a wrong call and covering it up vs a race director making a questionable but technically legal call per wording. Either way though, 21 is the greatest season we had in a long time.
Smartest Verstappen fan thank you 💯
There is a precedent for the FIA not following procedures correctly and they took the final race result from the previous racing lap on count back.
So there is a difference between Singapore and Abu Dhabi, but too late to change anything now. It’s all a bit of a farce.
That race should have finished behind the safety car, so therefore Lewis wins race and is champion, plus redbull overspent on the budget cap so they should be stripped of title, they stripped Schumacher in 97 of all his points
@coolc2452 100% facts. Verstapoen should have had a race ban for landing on Lewis's car at Monza. Crashed into him on purpose.
As I've said. Once other cars can go toe to toe with Max. He'll be the dirty driver he is.
Why does Toto care about the 2021 drivers championship? I mean isn’t it just for Wikipedia?
It's about setting a president more than anything. The whole massa situation opens up every single season in the last 50 years open to observation and legal cases. That's the big issue this has caused
@Kieran_OPC It doesn't though, that's not how statutes of limitations work. If Toto had new revelationary information about AD'21, that could restart the statute clock; but he doesn't or he would have. In contrast, Massa didn't have grounds for his claim until Bernie admitted it in his interview.
These two situations couldn’t be more different
What mercedes are looking at with interest is,.....
The FIA told mercedes their is nothing can be done after a certain date...... So if massa's case is won things can be done a certain date. They are not comparing on track things but the fias own rules
“Fernando was no way involved” 😅
When Ecclestone revealed that F1 and FIA worked togheter to cover everything up while the 2008 season was still happening it changed everything. Up until then, it was acceptable that no one knew about it until it all broke out in 2009, but if those responsible for guarenteeing the sportsmanship in Formula One were envolved at a time that action could be taken is enough for Massa to make a case about his right to the 2008 World Championship. This mentality of not wanting to change anything because it can cause trouble just should be considered absolutely wrong by any real F1 fan. It all has to be based on real competition for it to work and just sit back knowing that injustice has been made is a sign of worry for me.
but the proper action would have been disqualification of Renault and that's it. It would not have helped Massa.
@@ronald3836that, and the annulment of the race results, in which case, Massa would've won the title.
Why every driver has to pay for Renault cheating? DQ Renault and move on. The other drivers and teams reacted genuinely after the crash
This is why the only solution for Massa is a civil claim for lost earnings against Bernie and the FIA. This would win, and would be seen as appropriate justice. Let's hope his legal team see sense, and go down this route.
It's hard to believe FIA truly knew. Ecclestone won't testify in court, because it's not in his interest. And cancelling races shouldn't be an option, they should compensate everyone for their tickets then.
No matter the outcome of this silly legal case, the final lap of 2008 season in Brazil is still the greatest/craziest ever
“Felipe baby stay cool, you will get the wdc“ - Massa’s lawyer
The problem I have with this is the supposition that if the result had been annulled sooner, that the rest of the season would have continued in the exact same way. That is obviously false - if Hamilton had found himself further behind Massa then for the rest of the season he may have taken more risks and scored more points - he may not have - and that is the point you cannot say.
Also as far as Massa in that race, regardless of the actions of Renault it was him and his pit crew which caused him to drop from the points and whilst the pit stop was triggered by the crash, the actions of the team were 100% their own so that cannot just be glossed over either.
"..whilst the pit stop was triggered by the crash.."
If the crash didn't happen, the bad pitstop will not happened. It's obviously false to assume if the crash didn't happen the pitstop will proceed like we actually know.
@@swordsman1137 yeah and shit happens in a race, at the time no one thought of it as a controversy until after the race, therefore that crash is considered an incident and all teams and drivers should be ready for anything to happen.
One of the many valid arguments against revising the 2008 championship results.
@@swordsman1137 It does not matter. The crash was deliberate but was not aimed against Massa. Crashes happen, and teams have to deal with it as part of the "game". Ferrari dealt with it badly and therefore Massa lost points.
Eve should not have eaten from the apple. If she had not eaten from the apple, maybe Renault would not have let Piquet Jr crash deliberately. It does not matter, she did not eat from the apple to disadvantage Massa.
The thing is, if the results of the Singapore gp get removed, the championship win we changes. As verstappen was ahead of Lewis going into Abu dabhi, by race wins, if the result changed by having the race removed, verstappen would still be championship winner, the results would have to be reverted to about 3 laps from the end if Mercedes’ wanted anything from it
👨🍳
The fairest outcome in those circumstances would be to classify from the lap preceeding the intervention that falsely determined the outcome of the race... ie the decision to not allow all lapped cars to pass / none to pass.
This would result in the expected outcome of the race rather than the manufactured one.
Mercedes is not arguing that Abu Dabhi should not count to the championship. If Massa get's to correct the mistake that was made by the FIA in 2008, then Mercedes is arguing that the mistake that was made in Abu Dhabi by the FIA, which is not letting all cars pass the safety car or letting all cars remain between VER and HAM, can also be correxted, which means Lewis Hamilton wins by default. No deduction of points is needed. The FIA already admitted that it was a human error, so then the FIA can correct the human error in hindsight, if Massa wins his case.
@@EH1942how is that fair? The Fia made the mistake nothing to do with the drivers. With that logic you could go back to any race where the Fia made a mistake. And they're plenty of those.
@@maumau6961 how is it fair? The rightful race winner would have won the race?
The fact that if Justice was served, F1 would be in shambles, is proof F1 is just a sham with people pulling strings from the sidelines with zero accountability. Hard to see these races now as anything more than WWE in cars. It's a joke series at this point, just meant to entertain the masses rather than being a competitive sport.
The biggest problem with the 2008 situation is, while the crash clearly gave an unfair advantage to Renault, we simply have no way of knowing if Massa was going to successfully finish the race in the lead. There are so many factors that could have lead to him losing positions or the race towards the end without the safety car, that it is impossible to judge beyond doubt that he was the deserved winner of the race. This isn't going anywhere.
We do know that horrible pit stop did happen and that didn't help at all.
@@T-CainesZR1 Which Ferrari did. Not Renault. It was still in their control. How do we know they wouldn't have done that during the pitstop regardless of the safety car?
The other problem is that if Massa had won the championship, McLaren were going to go to court to challenge the result in Spa. McLaren would very likely have won their challenge so Massa does not have a case.
It doesn't matter "what would have happened" as that race should have been annulled anyways. So, nobody would get points. Not that hard to understand.
@@AlexHurtadoVox Then McLaren would have challenged the result in Spa as they intended to if Massa was ahead in the championship after Brazil and would have won that challenge.
Not that hard to understand.
I'm a Ferrari fan. 2008 was devastating, that moment of epic joy just for it to get crushed on the last corner. So how did Felipe feel? I literally can't even imagine and it's clear it haunts him and always will. I get it. That said if Ferrari didn't bungle the pit stop then none of it would've happened. Sure the pit stop shouldn't have happened, caught em by surprise etc but still...no one else screwed up, and this is the pinnacle of motorsports. You should be able to handle it. Its like 2021: Despite various legit issues ultimately if Lewis didn't hit the magic button he's champion. The tire snafu in Hungary his poor quali (thus race) in Monaco. Lewis/Merc made more errors and in a close fight that can be what tips it. Just like how Merc fans need to accept this and not project/lash out Massa needs to accept it was his team's fault.
Restarting? Toto and Lewis never stopped talking about AD21.
For good reason. A driver was denied his historic championship because the race director decided to change F1 from a sport to a movie and wanted an exciting finish.
@@DANA-lx8cv Dude, it was 22 months ago. Maybe time to let it go...
@@t.w.falconer3952 I agree nothing can or should be done now, but I also can understand why a team or driver who has actual skin in the game would still feel wronged. Besides I'm a Ferrari fan, so I'm enjoying the recent victory!
Problem with legally challenging the results of a sporting event is you're always going to have to base it off a hypothetical alternate timeline. Lawsuits need to be based on what you can factually prove, and doing the former sets a very dangerous precedent.
Lost earnings lawsuits are very common.
Surely everyone knows that.
Yep. There would've been a whole season that followed and decisions made to protect leads or try to gain one. It's not like this happened on the last lap of the last race with only the FIA making the mistake or anything... :)
Asking to nullify the results of 1 manipulated race is reasonable....if it were 2009. Massa sat on his hands, he should be 1x World Champion, but he took too long.
2021 isn't even a story because if you nullified the results, Max would still win and if they Red Flagged or let lapped cars pass a lap sooner, there are scenarios for both drivers to win.
lol no it doesn't. There is no changing of points on what would have happened if there wasn't a crash. The only thing that happens you rightfully nullify the results and none of the points count which is what is being asked and how such a thing would be handled.
To make his case financially, the only thing he must do is compare to the sponsorships Hamilton results in the year after as well as other WDC winners of the time, Button, Alonso, Vettel and Kimi.
@@Parker-- Hamilton is more "sponsor-able" than Massa though.
Trying to link Massa's case with others doesn't make much sense to me. The point is that FIA/F1 bosses knew about it at a time they should have cancelled it. It's black and white.
Other cases were about interpretation of rules, incidents, etc. Especially 2021 where they had an agreement with F1 and the teams to try to end it under green. The "human error" was caused by the rules not beeing clear enough. Gray area.
I don't think results will be changed. But I believe Massa will win the civil case anyway. Any sane judge will rule in his favor even if that doesn't make him the official champion. You could say he pretty much already won it.
how is it black and white the race should have been cancelled? to everyone but Renault it was just a race with a safety car, it was the same for everyone
They would not have cancelled the race, that is simply not how the rules work, and it would not make any sense to cancel everybody's results. As far as all non-Renault drivers are concerned, the crash was just a crash like any other crash. It did lead to Massa effectively being taken out BY HIS OWN TEAM, but that would also have happened if the crash had not been deliberate.
The proper response would have been disqualification of Alonso from that race (or even: disqualification of Renault from the whole season, like how Schumacher was disqualified years earlier). It does not matter that Alonso may not have been aware of the plan (but likely he was aware of it), he was part of Renault and Renault's behaviour deserved the greatest possible punishment.
I disagree Masa has every right to go after what was in effect a planned effort to not do the right thing. He should have been reinstated based on the Renault deception. I love Alonso but he won something that he had no right to win.
If the 2008 Singapore GP result was overturned ( and with it the 2008 WDC) was overturned this will open a real can of worms and both the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and other championships such as 1989, 1990 , 1994 and 1997 (Where Mclaren and Williams colluded at the final race) could have their championship results altered. and that is why Massa has no chance of winning this.
Agreed, the 2021 is most recent and likely would fall inside whatever "time period" they decide is admissible. That one should be changed, as the FIA basically got it all wrong per their own rules and the outcome was dictated due to that. It will open a can of worms to be sure. I also don't know why the 2021 controversy was dropped so quickly.
You realize that no matter what scenario you play through about AD that is in any way shape or form realistically possible, Max still wins that title, right?
@@thewoode1050yes. The same Max Verstappen who was awarded a "win" in Belgium where there was 3 laps behind the safety car. That's the only reason he would win on countback.
What should've happened. In the immediate aftermath of the race the cars reclassified as they crossed the line on the penultimate lap due to the SC rules being bent way out of contention.
@@xpwn3rx AD 2021 is a completely different scenario. There was certainly a mistake that the race director (and as such the FIA) made, there was no collusion by teams in the race to alter the results of that race. Singapore 2008 is a completely different scenario and the result should 100% be thrown out. Maybe even the whole championship that season should just be considered null and void.
Also, no matter what happens with AD 2021, the result will favour Max in the end. There is a 0% chance that the actual result of the race would be changed. The only thing that might happen is the result being thrown out, which would still result in Max winning the title.
@@mulvihillmatt How would any outcome favor Max? The only outcome I can think of that does is the current status. Correct for any of the mistakes and missteps and the outcome changes.
Agree on that there was a lot going into 2008, data changing hands that shouldn’t have, teams crashing intentionally to win races. The FIA has control over the FIA and can reprimand teams but their own employee screwed up 2021 to an unbelievable degree.
Mercedes have nothing to gain by re-opening 2021, they literally chose not to sue because they knew they wouldn’t get their desired result
Meanwhile the Crashgate case iscompletely different
I think the most important difference between 08 singapore and AD21 is that it could be argued that in 08 the sporting body worked together to hide another competitor manipulated the field of play in an unfair manner. In AD21, the competitors were all on the level on the field of play but the sport had a setup that basically gave one referee (arguably) unclear or ambiguous power to make a call that ended up disadvantaging one driver compared to their competitor. Neither result should be changed imo from a technical standpoint, but also from the standpoint of a sporting fan. Sometimes the run goes against you but over a 20+ event calendar the drivers should be able to overcome whatever luck is present, and sometimes it’s okay if a champion is controversial or debatable
but 08 Singapore only Renault had an unfair advantage, to everyone else it was just a race with a safety car
You can't fault Masi for trying to let the race end in racing (unless he created an unsafe situation, which he did not). Lewis lost because Latifi crashed, but Latifi's crash was not a deliberate attempt to screw over Lewis. (But imagine it was Perez that had crashed instead of Latifi... ouch!!)
I fully agree with your point on luck. Abu Dhabi was really bad luck for Hamilton but over the whole season it was just one of a many such lucky/unlucky events. If Abu Dhabi had been the first race of the season (with the same events happening), nobody would have talked about it when Max had won the championship at the end of the season with the same point difference.
@@ronald3836people were still talking about Valtteri going bowling right up to the end of the season.
I agree.. 08 is not the same as AD21. The key point is that they knew about the deliberate crash and again deliberately ignored or played it as if they don't know..
@@grommile which was convenient, but not intentional.
You can’t be punishing Hamilton for the FIA failure in 2008 and you can’t punish max for the FIAs failure in 2021. It’s done no point of unearthing it. Move on
@letsaddsomesubs5943 na bro, leave it out. Need to stop being childish and get over it. Yh it was harsh but it happen. Max deserved that championship.
Aidan Millward did a pretty good video about this.
He looked back to see if there was any previous incidents that could set a legal precedent, of which there are a few. What he found was that if anything was done about this now, it would likely end up annulling the race as involved personnel have already been punished. Either way, it wouldn't help Massa's championship hopes, just like all the other things that went against him at the time.
FIA is one of the worst and corrupt sports organizations. Along with the IOC, the NFL, although I still love football, and whatever that one with soccer, which I have no interest anyway. The greed in these orgs are incredible.
I think the main difference everyone is missing is that Singapore 2008 was not just a referee error, it was a FIXED race
The entire race was predetermined by Renault and they didn’t care what happened to the rest of the grid. The problem this causes is that the results are illegitimate, not just Alonso’s win, but ALL of it. Rosberg’s Williams was never going to be 2nd ffs
Massa exposing the FIA for their disgraceful management is a W
And there is no way Alonso didn’t know
Unlikely. Do this and Abu Dhabi will only be the beginning.
Let's also add Japan '89 and '90, Adalaide '94 while were at it. If anything, Hamilton should countersue that 25-second time penalty
Abu Dhabi 2021 is irrelevant if the result is cancelled. All it means is Verstappen and Hamilton finish on equal points
@@nathanb286 not to mention that Verstrappen still won on countback by having more wins(9) than Hamilton(8)
is it even realistic to expect a court to change a race result? At most, the best result is some money for damages.
Red Bull played a big part in Abu Dhabi, they told Masi exactly what to do.
Yes, Horner was somehow able to interrupt Toto's continuous stream of requests. Not unlapping would have been very unusual.
The real problem was that team leaders were allowed to talk to Masi. (And I guess we agree on that.)
@@ronald3836 "we need to get these cars out of the way"
"We only need one lap"
Masi was listening to Horner all season, not Wolf
@@peanutnutter1Just because you believe it doesn't make it true.
@@lb8130 the nature of truth has more to do with believe than you give credence to, even most objective scientific truth gets overwritten eventually. Anyway there were dozens of intentional benefits and detriments that favoured Red Bull and hampered Mercedes, including giving Max the Spa win.
@@peanutnutter1You can make a case that George crashing in Imola to save Hamilton from being a lap down could have also been "intentionally" orchestrated by merc to keep Hamilton in the title fight. Mercedes got away with a lot too and kept themselves in the title fight by taking out their main competitors. Hamilton and Mercedes lost it because of Baku and Monaco. It's as simple as that.
brits being brits... Massa wants the race excluded, if that happens then Mercedes will look for AD21 excluded as well, which, if you are not brit and think about it, will not give anything to Hamilton.
Hamilton has been living rent free in Massa’s head for 88.235 percent of my life time
Messa sitting on his couch shouting: "I could have won!" At the TV.
One championship was thrown away when the driver in question drove off with the fuel hose attached. The other clearly was lost due to FIA error. Cut and dried in both cases and neither will get changed.
FIA error haha good one, Hamilton only had to defend for one lap on a track notoriosly difficult for overtaking. He couldnt hold ne for one lap in the best car, even without DRS. His supposed hero Senna wouldnt have let that happen.
Delusional. Problem was Ferrari using those days automatic pit stop signal system instead of lollipop boy.
I think this article misses the point. Firstly, I would say there is enough difference in he circumstances of the two incidents covered. Massa lost as a consequence of cheating by another team. Lewis lost as a consequence of rules that were open to some interpretation being misapplied. That's not to say the later is not worth reopening, just that it is different enough.
With respect to the statute of limitations. This is irrelevant. It's just an FIA rule. It has no legal basis. Massa is using the legal system to get the FIA to reopen this issue. If they don't he will go to court. If they do, it's because they want to avoid this playing out in the courts. I think this is about who blinks first. The 2021 case would not have any legal basis for dispute so there's no point trying that route.
They cannot collude to hide something in self benefit and call the rules to cover themselves from their own wrong doing.
Hoy boy. Look all I'm saying is if Ferrari wasn't Ferrari then this wouldn't be an issue. Double DNF at the start don't help, their blunder with the fuel was Ferrari's fault. And with Hamilton he could have avoided that drama in abu dhabi had he not thrown away the win in Baku by pressing the wrong button. These rules are in place. Why change or challenge them now? Ferrari could have done so once Massa recovered and Mercedes had the opportunity to do so but chose not to. It's all very silly.
I really struggle to see the connection between Singapore 2008 and Abu Dhabi 2021. In 2008 we had a premeditated plan to fix the race results, and we had a trial that demonstrated that the race was consciously manipulated. In 2021 we had none of that because even though Masi messed everything up, there was no premeditation, no intention to fix the race results. It was "just" an awfully messy handling of a situation.
Unless we find out that Masi and RedBull had set up some sort of plan beforehand to give Verstappen the championship, this all is dumb nonsense.
If it turned out Latifi was paid by Red Bull to crash, then Hamilton would really have a case (but likely it would still be too late, haha). Luckily it was not Perez but Latifi who crashed and nobody believes that the crash was deliberate.
1994 Schumacher delibratly crashes into Damon Hill to win championship
The 89 Championship would also need changing in senna's favour, considering how prost was favoured by jean marie balestre.
That was properly stolen from Ayrton. He won on the track and they invented an excuse to deprive him of his title.
Yeah when you look at front camera angles it shows Prost did to Senna what MS did to JV at Jerez 97 nearly identical. Yet in 89 the passer get banned in 97 the defender got banned.
and ban Senna for purposefully crashing into prost at Suzuka as well
Realize that Senna had to win in Japan and Australia to take the title. He didn't win in Australia so it didn't matter. And he would still be disqualified for getting outside assistance to start the car.
@@registrado54 He looses his 1990 title, but gets the 1989 back.
If a Team cheats, then that Team should be disqualified. Hence Alonso loses the win, which gives Lewis more points. There's no way that the Race should be abandoned. No-one else did anything wrong!!!
Why would it?
I’m sure Mercedes would love to hear Woolf’s voice from the 2021 race replayed in court telling the Race Director on multiple occasions not to deploy a Safety Car. I’ll just point out that it was obvious any car crashing in the hotel section of Abu Dhabi was going to create a Safety Car (as Perez’s Racing Point electrical breakdown the year before had done). A 5 lap period was marginal to restart the race & the marshal’s were quick. The Race Director (the human error as FIA now call him) was harangued by the team personnel, initially Woolf, but also Wheatley from Red Bull chewing up his decision time in the peculiar horse trading Masi had been practicing all season. When Hamilton won in Saudi Arabia there was no protest from Woolf about the race direction (which Horner said was like listening to a local market trader). Come a failed race strategy and he got him sacked behind the scenes and hasn’t stopped with the innuendo since. Over the weekend of that very exciting finale I rewatched both the Sakir and Abu Dhabi races from 2020 and I could see exactly why Woolf was worried that evening, not because of an overwhelming sense of fair play, but because he knew any car stopped at the hotel within the last 10 laps could kill their race, after Perez’s had held Hamilton on track. He also knew the race director was weak and exploited that by interfering with the safe running of the 2021 race. As a fan of F1 since 1976, I think this story is done. I’ve seen shadier things done in F1, but this had no ulterior motive, just a breakdown that Woolf partially initiated.
I couldn’t have said this better myself. Merc played it far too safe, they miscalculated, and paid for it at Abu Dhabi 2021. The Singapore 2008 scandal is a totally different kettle of fish, and it’s immensely disingenuous for people to think otherwise.
Massa shouldn't be given the title, but he should be compensated.
The quote from Ecclestone:
"We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions."
Maybe he's wrong about the rules, maybe he's talking out of his ass, (he, of course, claims now to not remember saying this) but if true, they knowingly disregarded their own procedure to protect themselves instead of doing their duty.
I'm not disputing that Ferrari fucked up, but I don't see how to conclude that Massa wasn't screwed when we have quotes saying "this, specifically, is how we screwed him", and it's perfectly fair to seek damages over that.
Yea, about that "absurdity" of Felipe Massa's claims...
I'd be inclined to agree with you, IF the governing body in question would have vowed to improve. Instead they have resorted to "p*ss taking" of the highest order. Two main actors in this sordid affair, after being "banned for life" from the sport, have not only been "welcomed back into the fold" by Formula 1 but also promoted to the highest echelons. Pat Symonds is now the "Chief Technical Officer" and Flavio Briatore an "ambassador for the sport". Sorry, but this is akin to the UCI proudly presenting Lance Armstrong as an "ambassador of the sport" and Eufemiano Fuentes as their Chief Medical Officer. Imagine how Felipe must feel seeing these pr*cks strutting up 'n down the F1 paddock again.
Formula 1 must not get away with such blatant disregard for decency. If this opens the door for other drivers to seek justice in courts, so be it. But they don't have anyone but themselves to blame for what's coming their way. Go, Felipe, give 'em hell!
I'll add another. Should Schumacher be excluded from 1994 given his crash with Hill. He was in 1997 when he did the same to Villeneuve.
All this shit over Abu Dhabi yet intentionally missing the apex at copse to bin Max for a basically free victory is completely unquestioned. Write off both races then the WDC is still unchanged, I don't believe anyone actually thinks Lewis drove better that year.
Signature move. Albon got taken out the same way twice
It’s funny how both of these controversies involve Hamilton. If both get overturned, Hamilton still has 7 titles lol.
I think the proper thing to do would have been to throw that race out and void its results. You can't say "Massa would have scored points" or any other scenario because nobody knows what would have actually happened had Renault not conspired to win the race. Therefore, it would only be fair to exclude the race entirely and award the championship based on the rest of the season's results.
However, it's probably too late to change anything now, hence I suspect that this should be a civil case. And since the FIA actually covered it up, they are the ones who should face punishment. I'd love to hear someone like Legal Eagle give their perspective on it, but I think Massa should go after those in charge and seek compensation including lost wages.
That's literally what Massa is doing. He's suing them in civil court for lost income including wages, sponsorship deals, etc. You've literally just outlined his actual case. It's just no one in F1 media is actually talking about the real case. Because they just want clickbait headlines.
@CharlesFreck oh noooo! A millionaire lost some change pocket!!! What are we gonna doooo?!?!??
Excluding the whole race absolutely wouldn’t be fair to all the drivers that didn’t do anything wrong. Had they disqualified Renault / Alonso result, Lewis would get even more points in that race (and retain the championship). I understand Massa’s pain, he should be compensated for FIA wrongdoings, but his idea of excluding the whole race (the race where Ferrari made a blunder in the pits, how convenient) is just ridiculous.
@@ripmork The moment a car crashed purposefully, the entire race was nullified. You cannot award anything fairly once that happened, because as I stated in the original comment, we can't know what would have happened had Piquet not crashed. If anything, it's actually MORE fair to the other drivers to just invalidate the race entirely instead of what is essentially guessing what the outcome should have been.
I'm guessing you're a Hamilton fan.
Massa's completely valid legal case. There I fixed your absurd title.
Go ahead and throw out Abu Dhabi 2021, Max still wins on count back at that point. Max had more wins prior to that race than Hamilton had and they were even on points.
Lol none is going to throw out Abudhabi. Only invalidate the laps after VSC.
@@ktcool4660 But there's no way to know how things would have played out had those laps been run normally. You can't just shorten a race years after the fact, excluding the result is the only fair option and even then it isn't going to happen because no rules were actually broken.
@@pyromcr "But there's no way to know how things would have played out had those laps been run normally" there should not have been racing laps. Masi broke the rules the race should have ended under safety car.
@@ktcool4660 Except the FIA say he didn't actually break any rules because allowing lapped cars to overtake wasn't required. He could have started the race again even earlier with more cars ahead of Max, no way to know what would have happened. No way to know how a red flag situation like they love to do now would have played out either.
@@pyromcr " FIA say he didn't actually break" they literally said Masi broke the rules said & " allowing lapped cars to unlap" is absolutely necessary. You can perform all the mental you want to justify the blatant breaking of rules by Masi. If Masi followed the rules the race should have ended behind the safety car like Monza 2022. Invalid all the laps after safety car is an easy slam dunk ruling.
I wonder had Abu Dhabi been, say, the third race of the season anyone would remember or be that bothered for all these years. Just because it was the last race everyone goes crazy.
Nopes because people only seem to remember that last race.
It would have probably just ended under a caution flag then, because the RD would have not been concerned with a big movie dramatic finish. That's precisely why it bothers people. The race rules need to be followed constantly, or amended and known to all, whether it's the first race of the season or the last or it's not really a true sport anymore, it's sports entertainment, and F1 has never been about that.
Had any other driver crashed at that same corner and lap, the same circumstances would have carried out. Renault "race fixed", knowing the rules at the time would greatly benefit Alonso if someone were to crash at that moment, so they made sure of it. Every competitor was presented with the same opportunity in the race and some did better than others, so the fact the race happened is legitimate, but Alonso still being classified as first is questionable. If Massa gets anything other than nothing, F1 would be on for a very slippery slope of lawyers everywhere.
Exactly, Alonso was given an unfair advantage by his own team (and should have been disqualified), but for all other racers this was just a regular crash as so often happens in F1. Part of the game.
@@ronald3836 That would've had to have happened right after the race. Any later, the only course of action for the FIA would've been to scrap the race results entirely.
@@halofreak1990 no such regulation full stop.
@@ronald3836 Except that is a regulation. The regulations in 2008 said clearly that if a competitor cheats, then the race results must be voided. Not "everyone who benefitted gets a penalty". The rules said in 2008 that if anyone cheated the race results were null and void and would not count. So yes, that regulation does exist, you're just ignorant.
@@CharlesFreck which rule number are you talking about?
The only thing absurd is this video and the reasoning it follows. Massa‘s legal action is - though very late - quite justified. Whether he gets his way or not it’s another matter altogether.
Your line of argument would mean that victims of criminal actions should relinquish their claims to justice.
If this case sets a precedent then it’d be a good precedent: cheating cannot get you the world championships.
We don't know what would have happened if Renault had been caught earlier - it's unpredictable and we can't assume the results would have stayed the same over several races.
I just don't see how Massa's case CAN change the result. What he can do, however, is sue to FIA and F1 for hiding the issue under the carpet.
The FIA has to operate correctly. Likewise, whilst Msrcedes shouldn't aim to change the results of 2021, the FIA should have been held to account
This. Legally, the 2008 championship cannot be changed. Legally. It is impossible for any court on the planet to make the FIA change the result. No one on the planet has that power. Massa and his lawyers absolutely know this. They want compensation for the tens or possible hundreds of millions of dollars that Massa would have received had he won the title in 2008.
I'd have to imagine given Piquet sr. altered Max Mosley at the Brazilian GP the result would still stand as Japan and China was run under the results of Singapore re-the championship.
This is silly.
Even if Renault's cheating had been proven early on, let's say by the end of the race itself, all the FIA could have done would be to disqualify Alonso, pushing Hamilton up from 3rd place to 2nd place (and Massa finishing 12th) giving him 2 more points, meaning he wouldn't even have to pass Glock at the last race to be champion.
Since it is absolutely impossible to predict how the race would have happened if there was no intentional crash by Piquet (other accidents triggering another safety car, yet another error from Ferrari's mechanics during pit stop, or anything else), victory would never have been given to Massa anyway only based on his position before de crash.
This is why when a driver is penalize for crashing into another driver, he receive a penalty, but the victim isn't given it's original place.
Well we would need to look into Spa 08' and see how Massa was gifted the win from Lewis penalty, which was egregious.
Lewis absolutely deserves that penalty. Damn, it’s as if CultLH live and breathe off totally retconning history.. 😏
Trust me, it will NEVER happen. Good luck with that.
This will start a domino effect if it passes. Lewis can then contest for 2021. Does it mean Schumacher’s title could be taken back? What about the Senna title loss and title win the next year?
So far no one said Masi made the decisions to deliberately help verstappen, nor Latif crashed on purpose or FIA knew one of the two were doing anything on purpose, same goes for the actions of Senna and Prost ( funny enough in this case the championships would just change order)
no only this one with Massa and Hamilton
@@rogerarruda3674 yeah haha.. they’ll just exchange championships. But with the Masi one they could contest on the grounds that FIA fired him because he was wrong maybe
I thought Lewis would lose the WDC if they void the Abu Dhabi result?
@@BrandoN-ie1np Yeah Verstappen would still be WDC if Abu Dhabi was voided because he had more wins, whereas if Singapore was voided Massa would take the 2008 WDC.
I rarely disagree with Edd Straw, but The Race should stop commenting on legal issues you clearly do not understand.
The 2008 controversy, and Massa’s claim to have the results re-examined and potentially overturned, has no bearing on the outcome of 2021 Abu Dhabi whatsoever.
If Massa succeeds, it will only be on the basis that he was denied the opportunity to make an informed decision whether to challenge the results of the championship within the timeframe imposed under the FIA’s international sporting code, as a result of a conspiracy of silence involving the governing body itself.
The argument being advanced is that the FIA may not rely on rules of its own creation as a shield against potential legal action where those rules have been exploited by a conspiracy of deception in which it was itself complicit - a conspiracy which was designed and intended to elevate the interests of the FIA (and those of the other co-conspirators) over their mutual responsibility to the drivers and teams to ensure the fair adjudication of the underlying fraud on the sport.
In other words, if Massa can establish that there was a material non-disclosure involving the FIA, with the intention of preventing (or delaying) him from seeking a remedy he was otherwise entitled to pursue, the FIA cannot now rely on Rules they themselves have written which impose limits on the availability of that remedy (a deadline for filing an objection) as a shield against potential legal action.
The law of equity does not permit a defendant to profit from their own deception and such a defence will not succeed.
To the extent there is no allegation of a similar conspiracy to withhold the relevant facts from Mercedes regarding the 2021 Abu Dhabi race, there is no comparison between the two incidents.
As a result, even if Massa’s challenge is successful, it will not stand as a precedent for a similar challenge to the 2021 Abu Dhabi race.
Only those who completely fail to appreciate that distinction would think one challenge risks making the other more likely.
It's not a "claim of conspiracy" it literally was a conspiracy that's now out loud and open. Something that Toto would have a little harder time proving. There is a difference in making a bad official call and actually keeping quite about misconduct.
Toto making that baseless accusation should and likely would result in Toto being banned from F1. It is fine to be critical of Masi, but there is no place for absurd and baseless insinuations about his integrity. And you better lose your tin foil head and start preparing for the real world.
the biggest difference here is one of these is matchfixing, and one is an officiating error. not exactly the same situation. comparing them solely because the end result benefits you, is massively oversimplifying sporting law. which is exactly why toto is just following it "with interest", and nothing more.
It wasn't match fixing but (very successful) cheating.
AD2021 was no Error, if it was it would have been rectified as one. It wasnt!
6:07 Thank you for being a voice of reason Ed Straw. It was not deliberate. I wish your colleagues shared this sentiment.
Annul the results of the Singapore GP. Recalculate the World Championship (WC) points. Award both Massa and Hamilton the WC title. If there are new claimants to 2nd and 3rd position, they should also be awarded the joint 2nd and 3rd places. This also includes the financial rewards, with interest. How about that ?
How the Abu Dhabi GB result hasn't already been overturned is disgusting. Not just for the rules not being correctly applied after the safety car, but also RB overspending that year and not being punished with a points deduction as the rules state. The FIA has no credibility.
Stay delusional
@@Redlingstein the truth struck a nerve I see.
The 2021 finale fiasco was down to Netflix ratings, pure and simple.
The 2008 Singapore fisco was down to Briatore & co. being cheating barstewards.
Blame Benneton 🤣
I know the case is absurd but would love to see a drama where Massa wins the case and then the real drama start.. FIA fighting cases in literally every part of the world😂😂
Drive to Survive's producers must be salivating over the potential spin off series they could make from this...
Masa was not robed. Ferrari fucked the stop.
BUT Lewis did cut the track just like this weekend to gain a advantage... End of. 👍
If the results of Abu Dhabi 2021 are thrown out, then Max still wins the driver championship. They went into the final race tied on points and Max had more wins.
I'm not sure why Mercedes are even thinking of fighting to get the race results overturned. That was Max's year to win. Had Hamilton not bumped him off at Silverstone, he would have been ahead in Abu Dhabi and we wouldn't even be here right now.
I want Massa to receive recognition for the manipulation that cost him the title, but they can't overturn the results because of the precedent it would set.
The video makes clear that Toto is convinced Massa does not have a case.
Agree, although because it wasn't "race-fixing" in AD2021, they wouldn't throw out the race, they would just call the race from the last finished lap behind the safety car, meaning Lewis would be P1. It is like in Australia 2023, where they rearranged the grid after the red flag restart because they had to go off of the safety car lines. That is why they are looking at it so closely, because the FIA basically admitted that the race should have ended under safety car and thus, should have never restarted.
Compensation damages yes. But not sure if you can get the title back.
If I was his lawyer, I'll pursue Flavio for damages too
The problem is that Ferrari screwed up and the fuel rig went with Massa and you can't blame that on the nefarious actions of Renault, Briatore and Piquet Jnr. The fact is that what happened occured and Massa just has to deal with it just as Toto and Lewis have to deal with Abu Dhabi 2021 which isn't anywhere near as nefarious as 2008 because that issue is just that Toto thinks the race should have been red flagged and Lewis declared champion instead of having the race finish as it did.
if the 2008 race in singapore is nulled, then it's only fair to null the 2021 abu dhabi race. it's all fair at the end.
Ignorance is bliss
Max would still be champ on countback
@@sheeshman9713 Nullify it anyway. Hamilton wouldn't get the championship but it would be some form of justice. A honest acknowledgment of the FIA's screw up
Massa has more of a case than Hamilton and Mercedes would. Let's look at WHY Massa is taking legal action. It's not because Renault cheated, or race control made a mistake, but instead because the FIA had already understood the race had been manipulated during the season and decided to not take action until the following year, thus making it, at the time, impossible to overturn or nullify the results. The negligence is where Massa may have some ground to maybe not overturn the results or nullify Singapore 2008, but at least recoup lost earnings from the actions of the FIA. Best case scenario for Felipe is they nullify the results from the Singapore Grand Prix, and with that it changes the championship result in favor of Massa. The most unlikely situation would be to disqualify Alonso from the Grand Prix and alter the results of the race all together.
So for a case for Hamilton, they're not going to retroactively change the results of the event. They can acknowledge race control's mistake and nullify the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix results, which would mean Verstappen is STILL champ. There's very little chance they're going to remove a lap or change the results to as if it had ended under safety car, that's not how racing works.
tl;dr Massa has a shot b/c of the FIA's negligence and the fact nullifying the results would change the outcome of the championship, Hamilton does not because nullifying the results of that race would not change the outcome of the championship.
The 2008 Singapore GP still is an unforgotten story in 2024.
Man, the British really just can't get over 2021. With Abu Dhabi gone Max still wins the championship with nine wins vs eight. You all need to move on.
These videos from the race never have actual conclusions at the end. The video just ends and I'm always like "I guess that's it?"
Don't upset anyone this way, get to keep their feet under the table like good boys and girls. The pundits are the same, they got rid of the ones who dare speak their mind
"It sets a precedent"
No it doesnt! Thats the best part!
If you take away AB2021, Max was already ahead, and thus, is still world champion!
And obviously, that makes The Michael the only seven times world champion, which I'm very happy about.
So you want Massa to win his 2008 case (spoiler alert: he fucking won't) because it will make Schumacher the only 7 time world champion and NOT because it's justice? Fuck off.
Nothing absurd about it, he got screwed and deserves to get paid
If the SC can be changed then Hamilton cutting the chicane on lap 1 should also get him a 5 second penalty which would lose him the race since it would have to finish under SC a lap before the actual end
@@letsaddsomesubs5943 I am saying that both were wrong decisions so if one can be overturned why shouldn’t the other? Yes Masi‘s fault had a more direct impact, but thinking about it, a penalty for Hamilton was arguably fair and the SC itself was a correct decision
so what about brazil 2021 or jeddah 2021 when max clearly outbraked himself so much that he didnt even make the corner and still kept the position and what about when he braked checked lewis and lewis lost his endplate or what about monza where max went for a gap that wasnt there
then we can go back and say max shouldve received penalties in saudi. Doing this just opens the pandoras box
@@marcdoyon8840 Brazil 2021 5 second penalty should've been issued.
He was penalised for Jeddah already
Stop comparing these two. They are not the same.
First of all: I'm not saying that Massa will win, or that he even has a case. In fact i, i don't think they do.
But lets pretend that Massa actually wins his case, and is crowned 2008 champion.
1) Massas case is based on the argument of FIA corruption (intentionally hiding the fact they knew about race manipulation). Abu Dhabi isn't about that, despite Mercedes fans claim to the contrary. We know what happened. You can like it or dislike it, but the Stewards determined that what happened in the race was valid within the rules. So since there is no evidence of corruption, Mercedes still doesn't have a case.
2) Mercedes had the option to appeal beyond the appeal they made to the stewards, but they decided not to. By forfeiting that priviledge, they have no argument for the case being reopened, since they - by their own inaction - therefore accept the result.
The only recource Mercedes has for AD21 is if new evidence turns up, the same as what happened here, which sparked Massas legal investigation. Then they can argue that they didn't appeal back then, because the evidence wasn't available at the time.
But other than that, these two are not comparable in any way. Massa winning his case isn't gonna help Mercedes in any way.
Not a member of the Max or Lewis fan clubs, but I wholeheartedly believe that if Mercedes had made a decent enough car to compete for wins and/or titles 2021 wouldn’t be as relevant as it still is. Also, if that Abu Dhabi race was annulled, (what I’m guessing would be the most likely scenario) wouldn’t Max still be the title winner anyway?
The favoured argument is to just void the laps where the rules weren’t applied
Otherwise you start opening cans of worms like demoting Norris in the 2021 WDC and promoting Leclerc.
If the entire race was nullified
@@backjarton01 yeah but you cant just whilly nilly decide wich laps to take away. The last lap - when max overtook hamilton, no rules where broken.
Do you mean like if a falsely accused murderer had the more money to pay for better lawyers, he wouldn't be in prison?
@@aps1s Yeah that’s why you void every lap that was affected by Masi making his human error.
@@aps1sor even better take out the first that Michael did wrong and on words.
Massa honestly doesn't have a case. Yes, there were shenanigans; but ultimately it was Ferrari's mistake that cost him points, even if the opportunity for mistake was caused intentionally. Even if this isn't thrown out, there are too many confounding factors to say that "this single action lost him the championship".
Merc is definitely paying attention though; not necessarily to the result, but to whether or not the case even gets to the courtroom. If it does, it means they can pursue 2021.
And of all the controversies, 2021 is by far the most clear cut. With the other "whatabout"isms, there were confounding factors or some action was taken against offending parties in the name of fairness. With 2021...the Race Director flat out got it wrong. And the FIA did nothing to correct it. If they were smart, they would have admitted that the race results were tampered with and annulled the results of the race, giving Max the WDC on tiebreaker. But their inaction has opened the door for Merc to say "Look, the FIA officially endorsed a classification that they knew was tampered with." That is a lot more clear and damaging than "if Team X didn't do Y, then I would've had the chance for Z"
Regardless, If Merc does take this to court, discovery could be quite spicy. As the closed-door deals and communications will need to be turned over.
6:30
The problem is that you can't really ever say "this cost xyz the championship".
Had Hamilton won that championship people would point to Silverstone that year where Ham eliminated it's rival and went on to win the race and would try to spin something from that. There is always something.
But in the end of the day I really feel like I can't remember a championship where I would say the champion of that year did not deserve to become champion.
While I understand your argument, the thing is, two rivals coming together because they're both fighting for the same piece of tarmac is something that happens almost every weekend and is a part of the F1 experience. However seeing a Race Director manipulate the rules to create a condition is something that was entirely new and is not a part of the sport.
jack villneuve maybe ? idk
FIA waits 1 year to investigate.
Massa: "FIA should have investigated sooner"
Massa waits 15 years to complain.
Everyone: ".........."
It’s ironic how the 2 best WDC photo finishes of the modern era are both under scrutiny
Massa has been given some really bad advice by a close someone...
Damn, life really gets back full circle it proved during the abudhabi 2021. I saw silverstone and multiple other times hamilton ruining Max's race and still avoid penalties. Silverstone he just got a time penalty kf a few seconds and sochi and other times max hurt hamilton's race he got grid penalties. It was peak humour for me back then.
Abu dhabi 2021, hamilton cut conner and took unfair advantage in the first lap and didnt give the position back. Max dwindled back.
I think it was God who helped Max. Cheeky Lewis, with all due respect he is one of the best on only on track but in mind, couldnt turn things around him that time
Spot on mate, and let's not forget Imola, he would have been a lap down, but luckily, a red flag was soon flying, allowing Hamilton to climb to 2nd. And even more importantly, how the FIA yielded to the intense pressure by Mercedes about rear flexi wings. Wings that were perfectly legal and within the limits, but now suddenly we had a technical directive. All because the Mercs were at a disadvantage. Oh, and what about the pit stop changes? Yeah, the Mercs were still being beaten by the Bulls pit stop crew, so something had to change...
💯
And Ferrari fked up the pitstop. What if they hadn't? I doubt Massa would have complained as he'd likely have won the champion ship.
Spot on.
Going back in time to change events that happened is problematic at best. How many other small events that if a different outcome occurred, would Massa have been fighting for the championship in the first instance. The permutations are literally countless.
If Hitler had not illegaly invaded Poland, then history would have taken a different course, and maybe I would have won the 2008 F1 championship.
@@ronald3836🎯🎯👍
A civil court does not have the jurisdiction to award a title. They can rule that Massa was harmed financially through an overtly fraudulent act, and award restitution and damages, but they can't also say "You're the 2008 champion". Aside from this obvious fact, there's the issue that the two cases are dramatically different. Massa's case revolves around a coverup. In 2021, the facts were known to everyone all around the world. All this is doing is fanning the flames of controversy. Are we going to go back and rewrite the ending of every controversial race? smh.
A civil court absolutely has the jurisdiction to award the title and tell Massa he's the 2008 world champion. What you mean is they can't force the FIA to recognise that decision. If you said that, that's true. They can't make the FIA change the history books. But they absolutely have jurisdiction to tell Massa he's the 2008 world champion.
Abu Dhabi 2021 - although the race director made an error but the results could not be deleted only 1 lap because the race was not in the red flag.
Singapore 2008, the culprit is there and obviously is Renault, so only they should be punished.
The race director followed the rule book down to a tea, it clearly stated any cars not all cars could unlap themselves, Verstappen won the world title fair and square in 2021, Hamilton won the 2008 title by a literal stroke of luck and manipulation
@@zxr-cade2026I mean you can‘t blame Hamilton for Renaults manipulation.
@@zxr-cade2026 Your bias is showing. Max was fantastic in 2021, but to claim Hamilton was champion because of luck in the same sentence is ridiculous. Also, show me where the rules have ever been applied that way before. Maybe it has before, but we all know how unlapping cars actually works
@@kennethporter992 you are forgetting that all teams decided, before the race, that the race should end with racing. Only no.1 and no.2 (max and ham) mattered. Masi did exactly what the teams wanted.
Mercedes knows this and didnt bring ham in for fresh tires. If anything blame them for deciding this before the race and then not following up with it during the SC...
@@werehyena7379 Nah man. The only thing that matters are the rules. All the unwritten stuff goes out the window all the time
Abu Dhabi 2021 should have been red flagged and none of this would have been an issue.
Part of the excitement about sports is that we take it as if it was fair. Whenever errors happen, they should be rectified. Both for Massa and Hamilton. F1 should take it with pride and acknowledge it’s not perfect and open to continued improvement.