SAO PAULO : The legal team advising Felipe Massa in his attempt to be declared 2008 Formula One world champion hope Lewis Hamilton will support the case in the name of sporting integrity, one of the Brazilian's lawyers has said.Bernardo Viana also told Reuters the lawyers had agreed to give Formula One and the sport's governing body, the FIA, until mid-October to respond to a Letter Before Claim sent to them on Aug.
15. The legal team had initially set a Friday deadline."The ball is on their court, we've been waiting for their response," said Viana, a partner at law firm Vieira Rezende Advogados. "They asked for more time, until mid-October, and in good faith we have agreed to that."Former Ferrari driver Massa, now 42, started his legal action over an alleged "conspiracy" that he says denied him the title, and has vowed to "fight to the end" to be named world champion.Britain's seven times world champion Hamilton won that title, his first, by a single point in a year that became notorious after Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr.
revealed in 2009 he had been told by team bosses to crash deliberately at the Singapore Grand Prix. Massa, who retired in 2017, was leading in Singapore when fellow-Brazilian Piquet crashed his Renault into the wall on lap 14 of the 61-lap race.The crash triggered a safety car that benefited his team mate Fernando Alonso, who went on to win while Massa failed to score after a bungled pitstop.Massa now claims the race should have been cancelled because the sport's leaders knew before the end of the season what had happened but covered it up.His lawyers want Hamilton, who was racing for McLaren at the time to support the claims."He is an important ambassador for the sport and has always defended