(Reuters) – Lawyers for Brazilian Felipe Massa have given Formula One and the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) another month to respond to threatened court action over the 2008 world championship.
The former Ferrari driver, now 42, alleges a “conspiracy” denied him the title.
A mid-October deadline had been set for Formula One and the FIA to respond to an Aug. 15 Letter Before Claim but lawyer Bernardo Viana said in a statement on Thursday that an extension had been agreed.
“FIA and FOM (Formula One Management) are completing an internal investigation and have requested one last extension to the deadline they initially asked for, from Oct. 12th to Nov. 15th,” he said.
“We have agreed to this final period because if the new administration is indeed looking into the matter in good faith, they will certainly reach the same conclusion we and so many people around the world have.”
The extension means the deadline is now after the Brazilian Grand Prix at Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit on Nov. 5.
Britain’s Lewis Hamilton won the 2008 title, his first of seven, by a single point in a year that became notorious after Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. revealed in 2009 he had been told to crash deliberately at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Massa, who retired in 2017, was leading in Singapore when fellow-Brazilian Piquet crashed into the wall on lap 14 of the 61-lap race, triggering a safety car period.
Piquet’s team mate Fernando Alonso went on to win the race while Massa failed to score after a bungled pitstop.
Massa now claims the race should have been cancelled because the sport’s leaders allegedly knew before the end of the season what had happened but covered it up.
Two of the key figures from that time, former FIA race director Charlie Whiting and then-FIA president Max Mosley, have died while former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is 92.
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who took office at the end of 2021, told Reuters in Qatar last weekend that Massa had been in touch and he was leaving the matter with the FIA’s legal team.
“I answered him saying ‘It’s up to you, you do what you think is right for you but the FIA will have to protect themselves,'” he said.
“We have our rules, we have our sporting rules, our statutes which say certain period after that you can’t (do anything)… but people can challenge that,” added the Emirati. “It’s not the book of God.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Christian Radnedge)
