Will Felipe Massa be crowned Formula 1 World Champion in 2008 after all? Rob Smedley wonders what such a ruling would mean for the sport as a whole
Felipe Massa is still in contention for the 2008 Formula 1 World Championship title, but what would happen if a court were to award him the championship retrospectively at the green table? Rob Smedley, one of Massa’s close confidants, is asking himself this question
“It’s no secret that Felipe is a really good friend of mine, he’s like a little brother to me,” reveals Smedley in an interview with The Race. Smedley once worked with the Brazilian at Ferrari and later again at Williams.
Over the years, the two developed a friendship that went beyond work. With regard to the current dispute with the FIA and Formula 1, Smedley explains that it is Massa’s right to fight for the world championship title retroactively.
However, he also makes it clear that he at least does not actively support his friend in this. “I’ve always been a person who, no matter what happened yesterday, whether it was good or bad, gets up, picks himself up and carries on,” explains Smedley.
Smedley: I wouldn’t care if I won the title afterwards
A subsequent world championship title would be “pretty meaningless” for him, he emphasizes, explaining: “I’m interested in what happens today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.” Nevertheless, he is following the case and its potential repercussions with great interest.
“It’s interesting,” says Smedley, who poses the following question in this context: “If [the decision] is overturned, what does that mean for sporting decisions, not just in Formula 1, but also in the past?”
“That’s not to say it’s right or wrong. I’m not trying to take either side,” Smedley clarifies, explaining, “It’s just a very interesting element to this whole thing.”
“If there is a decision that favors what Felipe was seeking, then it will be very interesting to see how the sport deals with past unfair decisions in general,” says the long-time Formula 1 engineer.
Smedley admits: Screwed it up themselves
Background: If a court were to award Massa the 2008 world championship title as a precedent after more than 15 years, this could lead to numerous other past decisions suddenly being challenged again in court.
And whether such a decision would be fair is another question entirely. Because even Smedley, who was Massa’s race engineer at the time, admits that Ferrari itself ruined the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, which is at the center of interest.
Nelson Piquet Jr. deliberately caused an accident at the time, which resulted in numerous drivers coming into the pits, including Massa. But Ferrari had a problem at the stop, which caused Massa to drop back a long way and ultimately finish the race without any points.
“We came in and then we had the problem with the fuel hose, which had nothing to do with what happened [to Piquet],” admits Smedley, emphasizing: “All the controversy that came afterwards had nothing to do with us making a mistake at the pit stop. “
Smedley: We knew something was wrong
In fact, Smedley suspected immediately after the race that something was not quite right. They had looked at Piquet’s crash and wondered how it was even possible to crash at that point on the track.
“Then you see the replays and on the third replay you think to yourself: ‘Okay, now I understand what happened. […] It was clear immediately afterwards what had happened,” said Smedley, who therefore already knew at the time that Piquet had deliberately driven into the wall.
Because there was no evidence, however, the scandal only came to light around a year later when Piquet himself made “Crashgate” public after Renault kicked him out. However, the then Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone later declared that he had already known about it in 2008.
Ecclestone told ‘F1 Insider’ that he and the then FIA President Max Mosley had learned of the situation “during the 2008 season”. “We decided not to do anything for the time being. We wanted to protect the sport and save it from a major scandal,” said Ecclestone.
At the end of the year, Massa missed out on the world championship title by just one point. Should the Singapore result be subsequently annulled, which according to Ecclestone would actually have been the correct procedure at the time, the Brazilian would still be world champion after all.
