Ferrari's Vasseur admits handing 2008 title to Massa 'would be strange'

Ferrari's Fred Vasseur says it "would be strange" for the FIA to overturn the 2008 F1 world title in favour of its former driver Felipe Massa 15 years after the season's conclusion.

Massa, who lost the 2008 title by a single point to Lewis Hamilton at the last round in Brazil, has initiated legal action against Formula One and the FIA, the Brazilian aiming to secure reparations for what his lawyers have deemed a "conspiracy" that deprived the former Scudera charger of the world crown that year.

The crux of the issue evolves around the Renault team's decision at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to order its second driver, Nelson piquet Jr, to deliberately crash his car to bring out the safety car to benefit teammate Fernando Alonso, which it effectively did as the Spaniard went on to win the race while Hamilton finished third.

The 'Crashgate' incident was relegated to F1's history books until earlier this year, when comments made by former supremo Bernie Ecclestone toa German website shed a new light on the fifteen year old controversy.

• Read also: Massa formally seeking reparations for 2008 F1 title 'conspiracy'

Ecclestone stated that then FIA president Max Mosley and himself had been made aware of Renault's nefarious actions in the immediate aftermath of the incident, but both men chose to turn a deaf ear to the matter to "protect the sport".

"According to the statutes, we should have cancelled the race in Singapore under these conditions," Ecclestone said.

"That means it would never have happened for the World Championship standings. Then Felipe Massa would have become World Champion and not Lewis Hamilton."

Queried on the matter in a call with the media ahead of this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix, Vasseur was predictably coy on the topic but admitted that awarding the title to Massa a decade and a half after the events "would be strange".

"As you can imagine I don’t want to make any comment on this matter," Vasseur said. "I have a good relationship with all the stakeholders and it’s quite tricky.

"For sure, the circumstances were completely exceptional but more generally and not about Felipe, I think we’re also trying to [push] the FIA to know the result of the event at the chequered flag.

"I don’t want to make any comments. For sure it would be strange.

"I am not a big fan of changing the result 15 minutes after the flag [let alone 15 years later]," Vasseur concluded.

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