Felipe Massa will refrain from participating in the home race in Brazil because the legal dispute with Formula 1 is still ongoing
Felipe Massa is not expected to attend his Formula One home race in Brazil this weekend. The former Formula One driver is currently in a legal battle with the series to seek justice for his lost world championship title from the 2008 season
For this reason, he has already been asked not to travel to the race in Monza, where he was supposed to be present. The former Ferrari driver also skipped the race in Japan. And now he’s hinting that he probably won’t be on hand to fill his ambassadorial role at his home race either.
“All I know is that Formula 1 has asked me not to go to Monza for the race,” Massa told the Brazilian edition of Motorsport.com. “I was supposed to go to the race in Japan as well, but I didn’t go. There was no talk about Brazil, we had no contact since the moment before Monza until now, so …”
He also said he probably wouldn’t be there on his own without a role this weekend: “I don’t think so. I would only go to the race as an ambassador,” he says. “But I 100 percent respect the situation that’s going on right now, and I would maybe not race at this time because of what’s going on.”
“But there was no invitation and no discussion about my work as an ambassador, so I don’t think I should be there.”
There is currently a legal battle between Massa and the FIA and Formula One over the outcome of the 2008 Formula One season, and the Brazilian has brought in lawyers to investigate whether there was a conspiracy that he believes led to him losing the world championship to Lewis Hamilton.
Massa believes that the FIA and FOM (Formula One Management) did not act properly at the time when they knew about Nelson Piquet Jr.’s intentional accident at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, which turned out to be decisive for the title.
The Brazilian believes that the Singapore result should have been completely annulled, which would have cost Hamilton the extra points that were enough for him to win the 2008 title in the final race.
Massa has already indicated on several occasions that his planned legal action is aimed at overturning the 2008 world championship result.