All this talk about Lewis Hamilton trying to win his 8th championship with Ferrari could now transition to him trying to recover his 7th. Felipe Massa, with renewed zeal, has sued the then-CEO of F1, Bernie Ecclestone, FIA, and FOM to overturn Hamilton’s 2008 championship win over that year’s Singapore GP ‘Crashgate’ scandal, seeking between $124 million to $290 million in damages. But in a bizarre turn of events, Ecclestone, who is on the defendant’s side has now supported Massa.

Felipe Massa, in 2023, launched a $13 Million lawsuit against F1 and the FIA to contest the results of the 2008 championship that Hamilton won. The infamous ‘Crashgate’ scandal involving Fernando Alonso shook the F1 world to its core. And Massa claims that if not for that incident, he would’ve won the 2008 championship instead of Lewis Hamilton.

Ecclestone, who was managing F1 then, claimed to be aware of the intentional nature of the incident. The former Ferrari racer termed that as an injustice to him and a case of “manipulation and sabotage”. However, even after such claims against him, Ecclestone approves of Massa taking the legal route. “If he had asked me, I would have said it was the complete right thing to do, to sue, and to let an English judge decide what is right and wrong,” Ecclestone told news agency PA.

If you’re an F1 fan, you know that the noise off-track has been more than the cars make on-track in 2024. And this is Ecclestone’s second time being involved in headline-level news.

Bernie Ecclestone’s involvement in Christian Horner’s investigation

Red Bull investigating Christian Horner has been the biggest headline overshadowing F1 in 2024. There have been all kinds of reports and rumors surrounding the matter. And the one rumor involving Bernie Ecclestone was that he had advised Horner to resign from his post to save face. But as it turned out, it was indeed a rumor.

“To clarify reports by newspapers that I had urged or suggested Christian Horner should step down from his position in Red Bull is entirely UNTRUE,” Ecclestone wrote in an Instagram post.

Read More: Amid $13 Million Chaos With Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa Reacts to F1’s Rude Shunt

All the attention that was previously on Horner will now shift onto Massa. As true F1 fans, all we can do now is hope that ‘this too shall pass’ and the focus returns back to racing.