Felipe Massa, who was born on the 25th of April 1981 in São Paulo Brazil, spent many years in the Karting series, starting in 1990 when he finished fourth in the São Paulo Micro-Kart cat. Sixth the following year and third in '93, he continued in the series until 1998 when he made his debut in Formula Chevrolet with a fifth place finish in the Brazilian championship only to clinch the title the following season.

In 2000, Felipe won the Formula Renault Italian and European Championships. In 2001, he took another step in his career by winning the F3000 European Championship one race before the season ended.

Then at just 20 years of age, Felipe took to the Albert Park circuit in March 2002 where he made his Formula One debut with the Swiss based Sauber Petronas team.

The young Brazilian proved to be very fast on many occasions throughout his debut season, however at the end of the year after claiming a total of four points, team boss Peter Sauber recommended that rather than going on to race for another team in 2003, Felipe should take the opportunity to join Ferrari as a test driver in order to become even more familiar with the technical aspects of Formula One.

So, after a year of testing for the championship winning team, Felipe returned to the Sauber Petronas squad with the signing of a two-year contract that saw him partner Fisichella as his team mate in 2004 and then in 2005 it was Jacques Villeneuve. He out drove Jacques throughout the entire season and was rewarded with a drive for Ferrari in 2006 alongside Michael Schumacher and replacing Rubens Barrichello.

Felipe gave Michael a run for his money throughout 2006 and managed 2 race wins and 3 pole positions. He best race to date was trashing the opposition in Brazil and being the first Brazilian driver since 1993 to win their home race. A few early mistakes in the season started to raise doub't with fans that he might of been still quite inexperienced, however it would appear that having Michael as a team mate made Felipe grow up very quickly.