Felipe Massa will not only contest his eighth home Grand Prix in Brazil this weekend, but the Interlagos season finale marks the Paulista’s 100th start with Ferrari. The venue is also scene of his last race victory to date, just over three years ago.
After debuting with Sauber in 2002, Massa’s Ferrari race career began at the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix, then winning for the first time in Turkey that year. He has won the Brazilian Grand Prix twice, first when racing in national green and yellow colours in 2006 and again in 2008, narrowly missing out on the title to Lewis Hamilton. In 2007, he gifted the win to team-mate Kimi Räikkönen as the Finn claimed his world crown.
“This will be a very important weekend for me, as it will also mark the end of the tenth year since I first raced in Formula 1, although not ten years of competition as I was a Ferrari test driver in 2003,” Massa comments. “Fortunately, I am still young and there is more to come, but ten years is still a landmark in an F1 driver’s career.
“Then there are my six years racing for the Scuderia, competing in 100 Grands Prix for the team which makes me one of the drivers who has raced the most for this team. Therefore, putting it all together - ten years of Formula 1, 100 races with Ferrari and all of it at home in Brazil - makes this something really special for me. It will be an emotional time and what I would like to add to it all would be a good result come Sunday afternoon.”
Last year in Brazil, Massa rated his season at 'five and a half out of ten', hoping for a significantly better year in 2011; but after a campaign of struggles which has yielded only a single victory for Ferrari, he is adopting a similar mindset this weekend.
“This year has not gone so well, but we have tackled it with our usual fighting spirit and that is what we will take forward to next year, when we hope to have a very different sort of championship to this one just ending,” he continues, having finished in no higher than fifth place at any race so far this year.
“The intention is to be competitive right from the start, fighting for the win in every race. This has not been a fantastic season for me, but neither has it been for the team. So, as a driver, I have a very strong desire which I share with the whole team to give one hundred percent to improve for next year.”
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