Ecclestone shrugs off ‘cover‑up’ talk as Massa’s Crashgate case nears court
Bernie Ecclestone has pushed back at the idea Formula 1’s leadership buried the truth of Singapore 2008, insisting there was never any way to cancel the race nor rewrite the championship Massa lost by a single point.
With Felipe Massa’s $82 million claim due to be heard at the High Court in London on October 28, the former F1 boss – who turns 95 that day – has told The Times there was no attempt to conceal the scandal that later became known as Crashgate. Rather, he says, there simply wasn’t enough to act on at the time.
“There is no way in the world anyone could change or cancel that race,” Ecclestone said. “To try to persuade the president of the FIA to call a special meeting where the FIA would have to cancel the race — there were no provisions for that to happen. Max [Mosley] knew there was not enough evidence at the time to do anything.”
The fallout from Singapore is well-worn history by now. At F1’s first night race in 2008, Renault ordered Nelson Piquet Jr to crash, triggering a Safety Car that vaulted teammate Fernando Alonso into a shock win. Massa, leading comfortably at the time, saw his race implode and wound up 13th after a botched pit stop. Weeks later, he lost the title to Lewis Hamilton at Interlagos by a single point.
The scheme only surfaced the following year after Piquet Jr was dropped by Renault. Team principal Flavio Briatore was banned for life before successfully overturning the sanction in French court; in 2024 he resurfaced as an executive adviser to the Renault-owned Alpine team.
Massa launched legal action in 2023 against the FIA, Formula One Management and Ecclestone personally, pointing to remarks the Briton gave to German outlet F1 Insider suggesting he and the late Mosley knew of the Singapore manipulation during the 2008 season but chose not to intervene to avoid a “huge scandal.” All parties now deny that version of events.
Ecclestone, for his part, has tried to put that interview back in the bottle. “I didn’t even remember the bloody interview,” he said, adding that the reporter’s English “wasn’t that good” and questioning the case’s path to court. “The lawyers for myself, the FIA and F1 do not understand how it can be heard in a court.”
Massa, who last raced in F1 in 2017, has been unequivocal about his aims. Represented by Nick De Marco KC, he’s seeking damages and, more importantly to him, a reckoning over a race he believes invalidated a championship fight. “Accountability is key to preventing future fraud,” he told the newspaper. “Those entrusted with protecting the sport directly violated their duties, and they cannot be allowed to benefit from concealing their own misconduct. Such conduct is unacceptable in any sphere of life, especially in a sport followed by millions, including children.”
The legal heart of the matter is thornier than the headlines. There is the moral argument – Massa believes he was “cheated out of the title” – and then there is what the governance of the sport allows after the fact. Ecclestone is adamant the framework to cancel a race wasn’t there in 2008 and that, until Piquet’s confession the following year, neither the FIA nor F1 had the ammunition to act. Even now, he maintains, “there is no way in the world” to scrub it from the books.
That stance collides head‑on with Massa’s pursuit of what he calls “a just and fair outcome — for myself, for motorsport in Brazil, and for the sport as a whole.” The court won’t be asked to re-award a championship. But the suit does challenge how the sport handled one of its darkest chapters and whether its leaders, by omission or design, failed a driver and a title fight.
Seventeen years on from those floodlit laps in Singapore, the argument finally lands in a courtroom. The stakes aren’t just financial. They’re about trust, legacy and whether the rulebook can ever catch the past. Ecclestone says it can’t. Massa is betting it must. The High Court is about to decide how far F1’s history is willing to bend.
