Felipe Massa's legal action against the FIA, Formula 1 and Bernie Ecclestone can continue a High Court judge has ruled, but has warned the Brazilian it will not be "plain-sailing."
Last month, in a three-day hearing in Court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Massa's legal team, led by Nick de Marco KC, attempted to convince Mr Justice Jay that there was enough evidence to send Massa's claim to a full-trial, whilst three KCs, representing each of Ecclestone, F1, and the FIA tried to end the case before it reached trial.
He is not seeking to overturn Lewis Hamilton's title, but rather is chasing the lost earnings he believes he would have earned as a world champion, wants to be known as the 'rightful champion', and is seeking a statement that the FIA did not properly investigate at the time.
Massa, who was in court for every day of the hearing, along with RacingNews365, was claiming that he should be awarded £64 million in damages through a breach of contract and duty by the FIA for failing to investigate crashgate at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix properly.
It is further alleged, based on a 2023 interview Ecclestone gave, that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley engaged in a "conspiracy" to not investigate Nelson Piquet Jr's crash during the 2008 season to avoid a "scandal" - after Piquet's father had told Charlie Whiting at the 2008 Brazilian GP the crash could have been deliberate.
Whiting then told Mosley, who decided there was insufficient evidence to investigate without a statement from Piquet Jr, with Ecclestone claiming he was unaware of the deliberate nature until the World Motor Sport Council's investigation in summer 2009.
However, in that 2023 interview with F1 Insider, Ecclestone claimed he was aware during the 2008 season, which formed the central basis of Massa's case.
David Quest KC for Ecclestone, John Mehrzad KC for the FIA and Anneliese Day KC for F1 argued that Massa's case was statute-barred due to time limits and that Massa should have been aware at the time of the WMSC report that Ecclestone was likely to have known during 2008 of Piquet's deliberate crash, owing to his links with Mosley and Whiting.
After the three-day hearing, Mr Justice Jay retired to consider his verdict about the four main areas Massa's case centred around.
These were the breach of contract against the FIA, the time limit on bringing legal action, the limitation ground, and the declaration ground.
The article continues below.
Mr Justice Jay's verdict on Felipe Massa case
Mr Justice Jay accepted that Massa had "a real prospect" at trial of persauding the court that the FIA had a "duty" to investigate, but that this was owed "to the FIA members" and not "Mr Massa personally."
Therefore, Massa's breach of contract claim failed. Another claim against the FIA under French law "barely survives" with Mr Justice Jay telling Massa to "abandon that claim now" or "obtain further advice."
As for the inducement of breach and conspiracy claims against Ecclestone, these survive "because they do not require Mr Massa to have a directly enforceable contractual right."
Mr Justice Jay was also not persuaded that the time limit ground argument put forward by the three defendants, and "rejected them swiftly."
All of Massa's claims are "statue-barred" under the general provisions of Section 2 of the 1980 Limitation Act (a period of six years), but that the time on this starts running "from the moment a claimant discovered or ought by the exercise of reasonable diligence have discovered the essential facts."
This means, as Ecclestone gave his interview in March 2023, this is when the conspiracy clock started for the Brazilian.
Mr Justice Jay wrote that "Mr Massa would have a real prospect at trial of showing that he lacked essential facts to bring the claims until Mr Ecclestone’s 2023 interview.
"While a reasonable person in Mr Massa’s position knew of the failure to investigate following the publication of the WMSC decision in September 2009, inferring a conspiracy to cover up the truth on the part of Messrs Ecclestone and Mosley was very far from clear, not least because the WMSC report was inconsistent with such a conspiracy.
"Furthermore, there was no or insufficient information to trigger Mr Massa’s duty to exercise reasonable diligence under Section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980.
"The interview allowed him to “join up the dots."
In a final warning on future litigation, Mr Justice Jay wrote that: "any future litigation would not necessarily be "plain sailing. Mr Massa would need to overcome various obstacles on causation.
"If successful, Mr Massa could in principle recover damages for lost career opportunities, but the court cannot be asked to rewrite the outcome of the 2008 Drivers’ World Championship."
Most read
In this article
Join the conversation!