Lewis Hamilton won his first championship title in the 2008 season defeating his rival Ferrari’s Felipe Massa in the final lap by one point.
But former F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone believes that Hamilton should not have the championship that year.
Speaking to the F1 insider, the 92-year-old said looking back he sees the mistakes that were made that year. He even pondered upon how he would do things differently and make Massa the world champion.
Ecclestone said that he and then FIA president Max Mosley wanted to save the sport from a huge scandal and so they decided to do nothing.
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Why happened during the 2008 season?
The 2008 championship season was filled with controversies. One of the biggest scandals of F1 took place that season and was named ‘crash gate.’
In that controversy, Renault had asked its driver Nelson Piquet to crash deliberately at the Singapore Grand Prix. This in turn allowed his teammate Fernando Alonso to gain an advantage and eventually win the race.
This controversy came to light a year later when Piquet left the team. Following this, the FIA investigated the matter and handed a two-season occasional suspension to the team and a lifetime suspension to team principal Flavio Briatore.
Despite the entire chaos, the result of the 2008 championship did not change and Hamilton remained the champion.
Ecclestone said that at that time the rule was that a world cup standing was not touched after FIA hands the trophies to the winners at the award ceremony.
📅 OTD: 2008 ➡ Lewis Hamilton won his first World Drivers Championship after overtaking Timo Glock on the very last lap of the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. pic.twitter.com/ui76WcKp7L
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) November 2, 2022
Why Ecclestone thinks Lewis Hamilton has an illegitimate title?
The F1 supremo explained that if Renault got withdrawn from the final results that should mean that Massa scored more points than Hamilton and should have won the championship.
He said that he feels sorry for Massa because he won the final in his home race in Brazil and did everything right. “He was robbed of the title he deserved while Hamilton had all the luck in the world and won his first.”
Furthermore, he explained that this is why he thinks Michael Schumacher is still the sole record-holder of 7 championship titles.
