A detailed look at the career of Brazilian driver Felipe Massa – Formula 1
Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa had a huge struggling Formula 1 season last year in which his teammate, Fernando Alonso completely outperformed him.
Massa was born in 1981 and began Karting just at the age of 8. In 1998, he finished fifth in the Brazilian Formula Chevrolet championship and he won the championship in the following year.
In 2000, Massa finished first in both the European and Italian Formula Renault series. In the following year, he won the Formula 3000 Euro-Series while securing wins in six out of eight races, scored six poles and five fastest laps. In 2002, he started his
first F1 season with Sauber and finished 13th in the world drivers’ championship with the best performance in the Spanish Grand Prix while securing fifth place.
In 2003, he became the test driver of Ferrari and returned to a race seat with Sauber in the following year which remained an inconsistent season while he scored 12 points with the best finish in the Belgium Grand Prix in which he secured fourth place.
Massa secured the services of Nicolas Todt, son of Jean Todt (former Ferrari chief), and remained a regular point scorer during 2005. He completely outperformed his teammate in Sauber and former champion, Jacques Villeneuve and finished 13th in
the overall standings. In the same year, he signed for Ferrari team for 2006 as Michael Schumacher’s teammate.
In 2006, he secured three pole positions and won races as Schumacher’s teammate at Ferrari while he emerged as a rising F1 star. He finished overall third in drivers’ championship.
Due to reliability issues in Canada during the 2007 season, he was disqualified which put him out of championship competition. Nonetheless, he scored three wins, secured six pole positions and played a crucial role in Ferrari’s 2007 championship double.
Moreover, he re-signed with the Ferrari team for further three years until 2010.
Later in 2008, Massa demonstrated huge levels of maturity and speed. Despite a dramatic win at the season’s finale at Brazil, he missed out the championship by only one point. However, Ferrari became the main championship contender with 6 pole positions
and 6 Grands Prix victories.
In 2009, Massa had a terrible accident in Hungary where a loose spring of another car struck him and caused fractures in his skull. Furthermore, initial lack of reliability and pace of Ferrari resulted in no podium appearance until the ninth round.
Massa recovered from the injury in 2010 and finished second to his new teammate, Alonso at Bahrain while beating Alonso in Australia but performance was reduced in the later races during the season. Moreover, a huge controversy aroused that Massa moved out
of the way and let Alonso to win in Germany because he and Ferrari backed Spaniard’s title bid.
The last season of 2011 was quite stumpy for the Brazilian as he could not be able to score even half the number of points in the season as compared to his teammate, Alonso and failed to secure the podium in his tenth year in F1.
Moreover, it has been speculated that it could be Massa’s last season with Ferrari if he is not able to perform well during the forthcoming 2012 F1 season.
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