Damon Hill issues hilarious response to Michael Schumacher ‘stripped title’ claim

Jamie Woodhouse
Damon Hill in the paddock. in Sao Paulo.

1996 World Champion Damon Hill walks through the paddock at Interlagos.

Damon Hill jokingly asked for Felipe Massa’s phone number following the suggestion that Michael Schumacher should be stripped of one of his World titles.

The one in question is his 1994 World Championship, the first of career, where Schumacher beat Hill to the title by a single point, though there was much more to the story with a controversial collision between the pair in Adelaide deciding the title in Schumacher’s favour.

That proved to be the first of seven World Championships won by Schumacher in his career.

Someone call Felipe Massa for Damon Hill

The Massa reference comes from the fact that the Brazilian racer, a former Ferrari team-mate to Schumacher, is embroiled in a legal battle over his 2008 title defeat to Lewis Hamilton, following the reveal from ex-F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone that the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix results should have been cancelled due to knowledge of the ‘Crashgate’ scandal, but were not.

And on the subject of stripping titles, Hill noticed aBlick interviewwith journalist and friend of Schumacher’s Roger Benoit who claimed that Schumacher should have been stripped of the 1994 title.

“I know that he was World Champion seven times, but the 1994 title should actually be taken away from him because he only won it because of his collision with Damon Hill,” Benoit claimed.

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So, now that Hill has been alerted to this claim, he had the perfect response, claiming that he needs to get in touch with Massa, who has become something of an expert now in fighting historical title controversies.

“Slightly surprised to discover this,” Hill wrote in a post on X. “Has anyone got Massa’s phone number?”

Should Massa be successful with his legal challenge, it is not believed that Hamilton, who is alongside Schumacher as Formula 1’s only seven-time champions, could actually be demoted to six with his first triumph in 2008 overturned.

Instead, it is understood that Massa would be entitled to compensation if successful with his efforts.

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