F1 2023 thread

One week to go to free practice at Zandvoort.

Wishing Jennie Gow the best of luck.

Ha. Where has it been admitted that they engaged in a cover up and how on earth would that give him the right to sue 15 years later?

Sue for what? He hasn't even quantified what it cost him. Should they take the championship from Hamilton and give it to Massa?

Do we have the article where Eccleston admitted it?

From the article: "Intriguingly, Ecclestone has now said he could not remember giving the interview that led to Massa's legal campaign and added that he hasn't been approached by Massa or his legal team to verify his comments".

Eccleston is an absolute lier and it wouldn't count for much if he did admit it, but now he apparently can't remember admitting it.

If I was massa I'd be fairly bitter and do just as he is doing.

I've a feeling they will throw about 20 million at him to quietly make him go away with no admission of him having been wronged.

He lost the championship on equal points but had fewer race wins than Hamilton. And Singapore was the year of crashgate - Piquet crashed the lap after alonso pitted ridiculously early so he took the lead after the safety car and won the race. There's a whole story around why Renault needed to win a race or else Renault was going to pull the team out of F1.

Massa was on to win the race with a lights to flag victory but Ferrari ballsed up his pitstop in spectacular fashion and he finished 14th, Hamilton finished near the front (3rd I think) so he took points off Massa.

Given Renault cheated, they should have been excluded from the race but Massa is arguing that the entire race should be voided and nobody should get points from it. There's no precedent for that which makes it a speculative bid at best and a sad act at worst.

If Renault were excluded for cheating, which is the normal approach, then Hamilton would move up to 2nd and Massa moves up to 13th, so the points gap actually grows between them at the end of the season and Hamilton wins on points rather than race wins.

It's undignified and Massa should know better than to get involved in a spectacle like this as if he has an ambulance chasing, no-win no-fee lawyer.

The-Race does a decent review of it here

Poor aul Glock was guilty of being a bit rubbish. Beyond that he's innocent.

The crux of it is the recent revelations from Ecclestone that the FIA knew about the race fixing before the end of the season and knew that the only correct course of action would change the championship result, so chose to cover it up instead.

They waited until the following year to officially investigate it when the championship could no longer be changed. Up until Ecclestone's admission we were all led to believe the evidence only came to light at that time, which is why there was never a protest before now.

The championship can not change hands now and it never will, but that will not be the point of the legal proceedings. The point will be to attempt to recover loss of earnings based on the fact that the FIA knowingly robbed Massa of a title that could have been transformative for his career and led to millions in direct and indirect earnings. It's certainly worthy of examination before a court should they fail to reach a settlement.

First para doesn't make sense. If they knew Renault cheated before the end of the season, how could they know their action would change the championship. Excluding renault would have given Hamilton more points and guaranteed him the championship before the last race. So if anything, their inaction gave Massa a shot at the title in the last race.

Yep I cant wait bringing the wife to her first race weekend, flying out on Thurs weather aint looking great so race could be exciting

Which team will win this year in F1 racing village?

I don't think the outcome of the '08 championship should be changed.

However, as I understand it, Massa (or his legal team) are arguing that the entire race at Singapore should have been null-and-voided. That scenario would have handed Massa the championship.

Stricking out the results of an entire race does seem drastic, but there is some logic to it. The actions of Renault brought out the safety car and fundamentally changed the outcome of the race. You can't undo the actions of the cheaters by simply disqualifying them.

Contrast that to something like Vettel in Hungary 2 years ago. AM broke the rules as they didn't have sufficient fuel in the car. Therefore, Vettel was disqualified. But the rule break affected him and him only.