Former Scuderia Ferrari driver Felipe Massa has admitted that he had to keep the first contract signed with the Maranello team a secret and he was only permitted to inform the close members of his family.
The Brazilian signed for Scuderia Ferrari back in 2000 and then first went on to drive for the Italian side’s customer team Sauber and went on to become one of the longest serving and most successful drivers in the history of the Maranello team.
Felipe Massa raced 139 GPs for Ferrari, with only the legendary Michael Schumacher and Ferrari’s last Formula 1 world champion, Kimi Raikkonen, having raced more GPs for the Italian side. The Brazilian took 11 wins and 15 poles positions, coming very close to winning the Formula 1 title in 2008 for Ferrari.
The now 41-year-old has now revealed his first ever deal with the Maranello team had to remain a secret and Ferrari only gave him permission to tell members of his family.
In 2000, Felipe Massa secured victory in the Italian and European Formula 2 championship in the same season and therefore convinced Ferrari he was a driver worth investing in for the future:
“I won the Italian and European Formula Renault 2.0 championship in the same season,” Felipe Massa explained in a recent video for the film Motorsport Heroes. “After that, many tried to get me under contract. A meeting was organised with Ferrari in Maranello. I didn’t know that at the time but they had been monitoring everything I had done: testing, telemetry, races, everything. Then they said, ‘Okay, we’re going to sign a contract with you as a young driver for Ferrari’ – which had never been done before – ‘but you can’t tell anyone. It has to be a secret’. So I signed an eight-year contract with Ferrari and wasn’t allowed to tell anyone! Just my family. That was incredibly difficult. Then I went to drive for Sauber, with Ferrari engines and then I got the call that Ferrari had decided to choose me. So in 2006 I was racing for Ferrari. That was a dream come true.” – he added.
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In his first F1 championship with Sauber, Felipe Massa finished 13th (the 2002 season) and them spent one year as a Ferrari test driver, before returning to Sauber for two more seasons, 2004 and 2005, where he finished 12th and 13th respectively.
At the start of the 2006 F1 campaign, Felipe Massa was promoted to Ferrari, replacing Michael Schumacher’s longtime team-mate Rubens Barrichello. In his first year for Scuderia Ferrari in Formula 1, the Brazilian finished third in the Drivers’ Championship behind his Maranello teammate Michael Schumacher and title-winner Fernando Alonso.
His best performance came in 2008, when he fought for the Formula 1 title until the last corner of the last lap, eventually losing by just one point to Lewis Hamilton, who was able to overtake Timo Glock with just a few meters until the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the final round of the 2008 season.
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