Felipe Massa To Retire At The End Of 2016 F1 Season — We Take A Look Back At His Career

Brazilian driver Felipe Massa has announced that he will call time on his 14-year Formula One career at the end of the current Formula One Season.

Massa currently drives for the Williams Formula One team and will race for the 250th and final time in his career at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in late November.

As Massa gets ready to bid goodbye, let's take a look at his career

A Look Back At Felipe Massa's F1 Career

In his storied career in F1, Massa has raced for three teams, Sauber(2002, 2004-2005), Ferrari (2006-2013), and Williams (2014 onwards).

In 242 races, Massa has won 11 races, all of them as a Ferrari driver and has stepped onto the podium a total number of 41 times and has claimed position 16 times. He missed out on the Drivers Championship in 2008 by one point, it was his best ever season in F1.

A Look Back At Felipe Massa's F1 Career

Massa started in F1 in 2002 with the Sauber team and scored his first ever points in just his second race.

However, he was dropped by Sauber in 2003 and he spent that season as Ferrari's (Sauber's engine suppliers) test driver.

He signed up again with Sauber for the 2004 season and raced with them till the team was taken over by BMW in 2005.

A Look Back At Felipe Massa's F1 Career

In 2006, Massa made the move the move back to Ferrari, where he was paired at Maranello with Michael Schumacher. Massa captured his first win at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix.

In 2007, he was joined at Ferrari by Kimi Raikkonen, who went on to win the driver's championship that year.

A Look Back At Felipe Massa's F1 Career

2008 was the year that Massa came closest to capturing the F1 Drivers Championship with Ferrari. However, he was pipped to the title by Lewis Hamilton in the final race of the season at his home circuit, Interlagos.

Massa won the race, but on the second to last corner, Hamilton passed the struggling Toyota of Timo Glock, to capture 5th spot and won the championship by a single point.

A Look Back At Felipe Massa's F1 Career

In 2009, Massa suffered a horrific crash at the Hungaroring circuit when a was struck by a suspension spring that had fallen from Rubens Barrichello's Brawn GP car in the second round of qualifying.

The spring struck Massa's head at high speed and he subsequently went and crashed head-on into a tyre barrier.

Massa survived the crash and returned to racing the next year and continued racing with Ferrari till the end of the V8 era in F1.

A Look Back At Felipe Massa's F1 Career

Massa joined Williams in 2014 and helped the British racing team secure third place in the F1 Constructers Championship for two successive years (2014 and 2015).

Image credit: Wiki Commons

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Article Published On: Thursday, September 1, 2016, 19:47 [IST]
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