Felipe Massa not to be underestimated

Felipe Massa can go from being one of Formula One's more underrated drivers to world champion against the odds in his home Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Only this season has the 27-year-old Ferrari driver, who would be Brazil's first world champion since the late Ayrton Senna in 1991, managed to emerge as a genuine contender.

Even if the seven points separating him from McLaren's championship leader Lewis Hamilton prove a gap too far at Interlagos, Massa can still end the season as the driver with most race wins.

He has already eclipsed team mate and 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen to emerge as Ferrari's leading driver with a contract to the end of 2010.

It is all a far cry from his early days with Sauber and, more recently, as a supporting act for Michael Schumacher and Raikkonen at Ferrari.

Massa's talents have always been evident, but so too have his flaws.

Former Ferrari driver Jean Alesi tipped the Brazilian for greatness when he first saw him drive a Formula One car, maybe because the fast and furious Frenchman saw a kindred spirit.

"I think he's a future champion," Alesi said before Massa's race debut with Sauber as a 20-year-old in 2002. "I've watched him testing... and he's mad, fast and clever."

As Sauber soon discovered, he was also expensively crash-happy.

Hired to replace Raikkonen, Massa failed to replicate the Finn's impressive debut season and was dropped after a year.

Managed by Nicolas Todt, son of then Ferrari team boss Jean, Massa was rescued by the Italian team who appointed him test driver for 2003.

At Maranello, the Brazilian learned his craft from the master -- seven times world champion Schumacher -- in a year that he has likened to being at university. The close relationship forged with the German continues to this day.

He returned to Ferrari-powered Sauber in 2004 and when Ferrari's Brazilian Rubens Barrichello moved to Honda at the end of 2005, it was Massa who was given a one-year contract to replace his compatriot as Schumacher's loyal number two.

With Raikkonen's move to Ferrari from McLaren an open secret and Schumacher still undecided about retirement, Massa was still in danger of being squeezed out after just one season with the champions.

Schumacher's departure ensured he stayed in 2007 but even then speculation about Massa's future refused to go away after double world champion Fernando Alonso fell out with McLaren.

Massa has never wavered, answering those who dismissed him as championship material by going faster than ever. He has won five races this season, adding to five from previous seasons, and notched up a string of pole positions.

It has not all been plain sailing, with the Brazilian failing to score in the first two races of 2008, but he has enjoyed changing perceptions.

"People always put me completely out of the game. Nobody expects you to do a good job and then you do a better job than everyone thinks and it's even nicer," he said recently.

"I'm sure if I started my career as a Ferrari test driver my reputation would have been completely different. Because of the first year, which was bad, my reputation was bad for so many years.

"I made some good results, scored some good points and made some good races," he said of that first year.

"But I made some very bad races as well. That was not a great thing for my image and it took very long to recover and change my image in Formula One. But, fortunately, I think we changed it."

Sao Paulo is where Senna was born and buried but Massa was much more of a Schumacher fan as a youngster.

The Brazilian started in karting, while also driving his father's car in Sao Paulo long before legally allowed, and moved into full time racing in Europe after abandoning his marketing studies.

His parents were comfortably off but not wealthy. When he arrived in Italy in 2000 to enter the Formula One Renault championship, he had a budget only for the first six races.

Massa overcame that by winning his first two races, a success that led his team to continue their support. He went on to win the title and the European championship.