Exclusive: Massa reveals trigger for investigation into claiming F1 title from Hamilton

For a brief 40 seconds at the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2008, Felipe Massa was a Formula 1 World Champion. He crossed the line to win the race in Sao Paulo, which was all he needed to do to clinch the title.

Lewis Hamilton needed a top five and as the conditions started to worsen with the rain, McLaren elected to put him on wet tyres. The Briton overtook a few of the dry tyre runners who gambled in the closing stages, but it was the moment at the final corner of the final lap of the race that changed everything.

Timo Glock's pace on the dry tyre dropped off badly and the Toyota ran wide at the Juncao bend, enabling Hamilton to dive past and accelerate up to the start/finish line to clinch fifth and secure the extra point needed to seal the championship.

The dramatic circumstances were partially presented after the crashgate saga in Singapore, in which Nelson Piquet Jr was instructed to crash on purpose to enable teammate Fernando Alonso to win an important victory for a struggling Renault.

It would go down as one of worse cases of cheating in sporting history, but recently it came to light that Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley decided against any action to "protect the sport and protect it from a huge scandal."

Having noted the new comments from Ecclestone, Massa stated his intentioned to "study" the laws and try to assess his options legally to potentially overturn the 2008 championship result.

RacingNews365.com spoke exclusively with Massa in Miami on the subject. He explains why now, 15 years later, he is seeking for any kind of "justice" on the matter.

"I think the first thing when Bernie's comment [came out] I was really, really surprised about those comments. Because everybody knows what's happened in the race, everything [regarding the 'Crashgate' scandal] came out in 2009.

"We hear after that also that Charlie [Whiting] knew, so did Max [Mosley], so for me it's the injustice for the sport. It shows that maybe every decision on the legal side, everything that happens, it was not correct on that situation. So I took the decision to study on the legal side everything that happened."

Massa: I'm not doing it for the money

But what is Massa betting on? Does he actually want to get his hands on that year's trophy and take away the title from Hamilton? "I'm not doing this for money. I'm not doing this for anything. Because it's not what I aim to, but I'm doing this for the justice. Not only for me, but for my friends, my country, my family, Ferrari and Ferrari fans, so in the end there are so many things."

"You also know what a championship does for a country? You can develop the country, we don't have Brazilian drivers now racing as well, so there are so many things."

A common comment made toward Massa is that if you open this can of worms, you have to put all the other "unfair" moments of 2008 under a magnifying glass as well.

"This is racing, everything that went wrong is part of the game. When you have a problem in the engine or when you have a mistake. You cannot really say 'I was wrong because my engine broke down'. But what happened on that race is a different situation."

When can we hear more about his investigation? Is there going to be a case, and if so, when? "I cannot say anything, we are studying everything for the moment," he reiterated. "Those instructions have been given to me."