FELIPE MASSA

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Felipe Massa

Friday 16th February 2007

Once regarded as the 'enfant terrible' of F1, Felipe Massa has come into his own with Ferrari, even proving to be the team's number one challenger during the 2008 Formula One campaign. While the season ended in cruel circumstances, with Felipe denied the title by Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the final race, 2008 was also the year when Felipe proved that he deserves to be considered part of the sport's elite.

That much certainly was apparent when Massa joined the F1 grid in 2002 with Sauber. Felipe's reputation had been enhanced by Peter Sauber's astute signing of Kimi Raikkonen the previous year, but as the season progressed it became clear that Massa was more wild than wonderful.

Although he got very close to Nick Heidfeld's performances he was guilty of overdriving the Sauber C21 and at Monza was fined by the stewards and deducted 10 grid places for a needless accident with Pedro de la Rosa.

As it was, Peter Sauber signed up Frentzen for 2003, offering Massa the role of test driver, which he declined in favour of a test role at Ferrari.

Following a season of testing for the Scuderia, Massa was once again confirmed as a Sauber driver for 2004, in what speculation suggested was a calculated move by Ferrari to bring the Brazilian back in F1 so that he could

gain more experience before moving back to the Scuderia at a later stage.

After struggling to match Giancarlo Fisichella, Felipe remained with Sauber in 2005 where he was joined by 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, and thereby given the chance to really demonstrate his talent.

However, had it not been for his sixth-placed finish in Bahrain, Felipe would have spent the entire season trailing his team-mate in the points table despite largely having the upper hand on GP weekends.

His reward was considerable: a race seat with Ferrari as a replacement for the outgoing Rubens Barrichello.

Alongside Michael Schumacher, 2006 was to prove the pivotal season in Massa's nascent career.

Felipe performed more than admirably after a slow start to the season and was soon challenging Schumacher in both qualifying and the races. He claimed three pole positions and more importantly, two victories, Turkey and Brazil, with the latter seeing him become the first Brazilian since the late great Ayrton Senna to win the Sao Paulo race.

A third-placed finish in the Drivers' Championship saw him finish the season ahead of the likes of Giancarlo Fisichella and his 2007 Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

However, the Brazilian lost out to Raikkonen in their first season as team-mates, finishing fourth in the standings while the Finn clinched the '07 Drivers' Championship title.

Although he claimed three wins and an additional eight podium finishes, Massa found himself out of the title race with three races remaining. From there his role was to support Raikkonen, which he did admirably, giving up the season-ending Brazilian GP win in order to ensure his team-mate clinched the title.

However, in 2008 it was Massa who emerged as Ferrari's No1 driver despite a shaky start to the campaign that led to calls for the Scuderia to sack him. Failing to score a single point in the first two races Massa soon found himself suffering at the hands of the Italian media and the tifosi, who reckoned his days were numbered.

The Brazilian, though, returned to form - and approval - at the Bahrain GP when he clinched the victory, adding another four podium finishes in the next five races, which put him firmly back in the hunt for the World title.

But rain, reliability and silly errors eventually cost him as the failed to find any grip in Britain, suffered an engine failure two laps from winning in Hungary and drove off with the fuel hose still attached to his car in Singapore - Ferrari's mistake, not his.

As a result he went into the season-ending Brazilian GP needing to win the race and have Hamilton finish sixth or lower to clinch the World title. And even though Massa did everything asked of him, Hamilton's P5 saw the McLaren driver take the title by one point ahead of Massa.

The Brazilian's dignity and class in defeat, however, served to underline just how impressive his season had been - and how far he had come from his wild days in 2002.

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