Formula 1, FOM and Bernie Ecclestone have been ordered to pay £250,000 in legal costs for its ongoing case against Felipe Massa over the outcome of the 2008 world championship.
Massa has been seeking approximately £64million in damages due to losing that year’s title to Lewis Hamilton, believing it was because of the disgraced 2008 Singapore Grand Prix that he did.
Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr purposefully crashed at Turn 17 via team orders to trigger a safety car period and aid team-mate Fernando Alonso to victory.
Massa was leading the race early on though, but then a botched pitstop under the safety car cost him even a podium, as Ferrari prematurely released him with the hosepipe still in his car.
The Brazilian ultimately lost the championship by one point and the outcome wasn’t seen as contentious until former series boss Ecclestone conducted an interview with F1-Insider in 2023.
During the interview, he admitted that he and then FIA president Max Mosely had learned about ‘Crashgate’ but decided to not intervene to avoid tarnishing F1’s image – though Ecclestone later claimed that his quotes were mistranslated.
Bernie Ecclestone
Photo by: Jayce Illman / Getty Images
Regardless, Massa filed a lawsuit with his legal team saying at the time that its client was the “victim of a conspiracy” that cost him “tens of millions of euros” – the Brazilian added that he was seeking “justice”.
It has been a drawn-out process and headed to the Royal Courts of Justice in London at the end of 2025, when Judge Robert Jay rejected attempts from the defendant to end the lawsuit.
Since then, the defendant has been ordered to pay the £250,000 related to part of the court costs for Massa, who has argued – alongside his lawyers – that no further appeals should be allowed and that the case should now proceed to trial, requiring the defendant to produce full evidence
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