Felipe Massa is currently just two points behind Lewis Hamilton in the standing this year, but does he really have what it takes to become a world champion?
Peter Sauber noticed Massa and then when he saw his performance in the Formula 3000 euro series he was convinced to sign up the young Brazilian as a test driver (interestingly Massa's family originated from Italy, but his grandfather moved to Brazil).
That year he won six out of the eight races in F3000. In 2002 his first full season he was teamed with current BMW Sauber drive Nick Heidlfeld, who was the 1999 F3000 champion. He showed that he had fantastic pace, but was extremely prone to errors.
He scored four points in that season, but this was apparently not good enough, as he was then sent off to Ferrari as a test driver.
He then spent the nexst year at the Maranello based sqaud doing hundreds of laps testing in the World Championship winning F2003GA. After a year's testing at Ferrari he then went back to Sauber after his consistency improved.
A key in Massa's racing career was in my opinion this year at Ferrari. It enabled him to drive hundreds of laps without any of the pressure in which he would of had in a full race drive. He was able to learn a lot that year, and able to learn how to drive consistently, pumping in fast lap after fast lap time and again, and if we look at Hungary earlier this year we can see this.
In 2005 Massa once again showed he had what a quick driver needed. He managed to outpace 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve and beat him in the championship standings that led to a race drive at Maranello.
An awful lot of the critics believed that it was a mistake on behalf of Ferrari for doing this. The thing was, Jean Todt had seen that exact same sparkle in Massa that Peter Sauber had seen, and so had an ageing Michael Schumacher.
In the second race of his Ferrari career he once again proved his potential, by coming from 21st position to fifth and beating teammate Michael Schumacher, who had started from 14th.
At the next race Massa seemed to go back to his old form. Following Fernando Alonso into turn one he spun and narrowly missed the reigning champion, who won the race. The season then improved, with numerous podium finishes, and his maiden pole came at the world's most renowned "Massa" track, the Istanbul track in Turkey.
In 2007 he was partnered with Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari, and in this season got "overshadowed" by the Finn. He had a lot of bad luck, and with Kimi being the team's No. 1 driver struggled to get out of the limelight too much. By now Massa was a renowned "second driver" for Ferrari, something which he intended to change.
The 2008 season has seen Massa have some truly awful performances, at Melbourne, Sepang, Hockenheim, and Silverstone (where he spun five times incidentally). Since Silverstone he has picked up his game, however. He has started to really outshadow team mate Raikkonen who struggles with an understeery car, unlike Massa who prefers a "Schumacher-like" style of understeer.
Something he has become renowned for in his career is the "Massa" tracks, the tracks that he simply can not be touched if the car is half decent. At these tracks such as Istanbul, and Brazil to name, something just clicks and he is in another league.
7 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete