Felipe Massa admits he thought about privately suing Formula 1 authorities for the right to be declared world champion of 2008.
This week, former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone stunned the sport by admitting that he knew about the 2008 ’crashgate’ scandal long before it became public a year later.
"Back then, there was a rule that a world championship classification was untouchable after the FIA awards ceremony at the end of the year," Ecclestone, 92, told f1-insider.com.
"So Hamilton was presented with the cup and everything was fine."
However, he admits that F1 bosses should actually have "cancelled" the results of the 2008 Singapore GP - which would have crowned Ferrari’s Massa as champion rather than McLaren’s Hamilton.
When asked for his reaction to the sensational revelation, the now 41-year-old Brazilian Massa told Corriere della Sera newspaper: "Bernie should have said it earlier, not now.
"But I’ve always said it - it was unacceptable. I spoke about it at the time with Ferrari and with the team’s lawyers at Maranello and they told me that there was nothing they could do. There was no chance of winning.
"But I have always thought, and I still think today, that if I had hired lawyers on my own and brought forward a case, the outcome would have been different," Massa added.
When asked if Ecclestone’s new revelations might inspire him to consider once again to call some lawyers, the Brazilian answered: "What would change for me now?
"The story should have been resolved as soon as it became known with the correct methods of justice. In other sports, titles have been revoked when things like this have been discovered, so why not in F1?"