It would be so easy to look back on Felipe Massa’s career as a series of what might have been, however on the weekend of his 200th Grand Prix that’s not the way to look at it. From the word go Massa came across a bubbly character with a lot of passion but when he gets in the car he is extremely serious and incredibly fast. He didn’t have the easiest of starts in F1; like many young drivers you don’t walk in at the top, unless you’re Lewis Hamilton. He struggled at Sauber but worked hard and got a few great results for a new young driver in not such a great team, then finally in 2006 he got his chance in what is considered to be one of the best teams of all time and certainly most famous.
In the first season at Ferrari he performed well: he achieved his first Grand Prix win in Turkey in 2006 and it went onto be quite a good track for him, which is vital because like most drivers he does have his bogey tracks; Silverstone and India spring to mind for Massa. Furthermore he managed to win his home GP that season, becoming the first Brazilian to win there since Senna in 1993. His 2007 was fairly quiet but 2008 was when the whole F1 community really got to see how good he is.
He had six wins that season, despite having a lot of ups and downs along the way: again wins in Turkey, Bahrain and Spa helped him well on his way to going for the elusive Drivers’ Championship title. Then came Brazil, again the achievement of winning your home race is fantastic but for that split second he thought his dreams had come true. To have that taken away seconds after and to handle it with such dignity and grace is incredible, up on that podium in front of his home crowd, as much as they were upset there was a sense of calm because of the respect they showed him for coming so far.
Again 2009 was not a season to be remembered. To have such a horrific and even come back to Formula one after shows some courage. It was of course a spring from his close friend Rubens Barrichello’s car but they have moved on, as I remember a press conference where Rubens told the story of them playing poker and Massa put the helmet he had the accident in on the table and it ended of course with Rubens losing a lot of money that night. If he was hurt physically in 2009, then in 2010 he was hurt the same amount but mentally. In the German GP of 2010 he was told on Team Radio: ‘Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm you understood the message?’ at the time team orders were banned so it caused an outrage and he was forced to take a back seat to his new team and this was a theme that continued until he made the call to leave Ferrari at the end of 2013, a decision that would pay of wonderfully. 2011-2013 were fairly uneventful, 2011 saw him be glued to Hamilton and they came together more times than you can count and he managed to get a podium at his home race of Brazil 2012 which will go down as one of the best races in Formula One history.
So far at Williams he has had an up and down season, with Williams’s just falling short one too many times, whether that be strategy or other problems. However the speed is there as we saw when he put the car on pole in Austria, which was a massive achievement for him. I expect more from Williams as the season goes on and hope that he gets a win.
Everyone who knows F1 breathed a sigh of relief when Williams announced that Rob Smedley would be joining the team, you can’t have Massa without Smedley. The most famous relationship in the paddock and they really do work so well with the famous time Smedley called him baby and well its stuck ever since.
So ‘Felipe Baby’, 200 Grand Prixs is such a great achievement, your fans are so proud of all you’ve done and to so many you will always be considered a true World Champion.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @lily_fenton. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and @LWOSworld – and “liking” our Facebook page.
For the latest in sports injury news, check out our friends at Sports Injury Alert.
Main Photo by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch/Getty Images
