Mar.8 (GMM) Felipe Massa has secured a partial victory in his long-running legal battle over the 2008 Crashgate scandal, with a high court judge ordering the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and Formula One Management to pay the former Ferrari driver $315,000 in costs.
The ruling came as part of the latest round of applications in Massa’s $80 million damages claim, which centres on the rigged Singapore Grand Prix that year – a race in which Renault ordered Nelson Piquet Jr to crash deliberately, bringing out a safety car that wrecked Massa’s race and ultimately cost him the drivers’ title by a single point.
While the costs ruling went in Massa’s favour, the judge also granted part of the defendants’ applications, certifying that a key legal issue in the case should go directly to the Supreme Court. Proceedings are now stayed pending that outcome, though the parties must still exchange amended pleadings.
The defendants have 14 days to pay the costs.
Massa said in a statement: “I look forward to proving in court that they conspired to conceal the truth, and I will use all legal means to ensure that this injustice is corrected. Formula One is the greatest sport in the world, but it is essential that it is also the fairest.”
A court ruling in November had already established that Massa’s action can go to trial and that he can attempt to recover damages – though his bid for a formal declaration that he should have been crowned 2008 world champion, a title won by Lewis Hamilton, was rejected at that stage.
Massa’s lawyers claim Ecclestone knew the Singapore crash was deliberate and that he and the FIA failed to investigate it properly.