Lewis Hamilton is still looking for a record-breaking eighth World Championship after losing to Max Verstappen in 2021.
Former team manager Peter Windsor believes Felipe Massa’s legal lawsuit against F1, the FIA, and Bernie Ecclestone over the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix might set a precedent, giving Lewis Hamilton the ‘opportunity’ to revisit the events of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Massa is now suing the three parties for damages after Ecclestone admitted in an interview last year that he was aware of the foul play involved in the Singapore GP at the time, but chose not to investigate the incident until the following year to ensure that, under FIA regulations, the World Championship result could not be changed.
Windsor believes that this move could have ramifications for the 2021 championship bout. In this case, Max Verstappen passed Hamilton on the final lap of the race after race director Michael Masi deviated from usual safety car regulations to create a last-lap battle.
Windsor stated on his YouTube channel, “Abu Dhabi ’21 was an unmitigated error of enormous proportions. It led to Max Verstappen winning the championship. Max won the world championship despite making a single-race fault.
“Based on what Felipe is doing about 2008 in Singapore, there should be a lot more debate about what happened in Abu Dhabi ’21. In my opinion, the final lap should not have been counted, and Lewis should have won the race and been the world champion.”
Windsor subsequently added: “Deep down inside, if you told Lewis Hamilton, ‘If you lost the 2008 world championship to Felipe Massa but got the 21 championship back, would you be comfortable with that?'” I believe he would be extremely comfortable with that.”
While Windsor believes Hamilton has a case and will pursue it through the proper legal channels, the seven-time world champion is unlikely to revisit the pain before his sparkling career comes to an end.
During the next year, he tried hard to overcome the tragedy, noting, “Abu Dhabi, the scar is there, and there will always be that memory.” However, two seasons after the race, there is no ill blood between Hamilton and Verstappen.
“I think we even spoke back then,” Hamilton told Autosport, amid speculation tying his former rival to Mercedes. “Max in that moment, he did what he had to do, it was nothing on him, it was the sport that let us down.”
