Massa was born in São Paulo and grew up in Botucatu, in the São Paulo countryside. He is of Italian descent, his grandparents coming from Cerignola, in the province of Foggia, Italy. He began karting at the age of eight, finishing fourth in his first season, and continued in national and international championships for seven years. In 1998 he moved into Formula Chevrolet, finishing the Brazilian championship fifth, then won the title the following year. In 2000 he moved to Europe and won both the Italian and European Formula Renault championships, then chose Euro Formula 3000 over Formula Three, winning 6 of 8 races and the 2001 championship. He was offered a Formula 1 test with Sauber, who signed him for 2002, and also drove for Alfa Romeo in the European Touring Car Championship as a guest driver.
In his rookie F1 year Massa partnered Nick Heidfeld, scoring four points, his best a fifth place at the Spanish Grand Prix, but making several mistakes. After a grid penalty he was dropped for the United States Grand Prix to circumvent it; Sauber then confirmed Heinz-Harald Frentzen would partner Heidfeld in 2003, leaving Massa without a seat. He spent a year testing for Sauber's engine supplier, Ferrari. Sauber re-signed him for 2004, where he scored twelve of the team's 34 points, and he remained in 2005, outpacing and beating teammate Jacques Villeneuve in the standings despite scoring only eleven points. After BMW's takeover of Sauber, Ferrari exercised its option on Massa to replace the outgoing Rubens Barrichello.
In 2006 Massa joined Ferrari to partner Michael Schumacher. He scored his first career podium at the Nürburgring and took his first pole and first win at the Turkish Grand Prix. His future was secured when Schumacher announced his retirement, and on 22 October he won his home Brazilian Grand Prix, the first Brazilian to win at Interlagos since Ayrton Senna in 1993, finishing the season third. In 2007, partnered by Kimi Räikkönen, he won in Bahrain, Spain and Turkey, finished second at home, and yielded the lead of the Brazilian Grand Prix to Räikkönen to secure his teammate's championship, ending the year fourth.
The 2008 season was Massa's most competitive. After a difficult start, he won in Bahrain, Turkey, France, Valencia (the European Grand Prix), Belgium and his home Brazilian Grand Prix, in a four-way battle with Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Räikkönen. At the final race in Brazil, Massa needed to finish in the top two with Hamilton outside the top five; he dominated and won, but Hamilton passed Timo Glock on the last lap to take fifth and the title by a single point. Had they tied on points, Massa's six wins to five would have given him the championship. Details later emerged of race-fixing at the Singapore Grand Prix, known as Crashgate, that Massa claims lost him the title.
In 2009 Massa scored a podium at the German Grand Prix, but during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix on 25 July a suspension spring that had fallen from Rubens Barrichello's Brawn struck his helmet, and he crashed head-on into a tyre barrier. He underwent surgery near his left eye and later had a titanium plate inserted into his skull. Luca Badoer substituted for two races, then Giancarlo Fisichella for the remainder of the season; Massa waved the chequered flag at the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Massa returned in 2010 alongside Alonso, finishing second in Bahrain and briefly leading the championship after Malaysia, but at the German Grand Prix he was instructed to let Alonso pass — engineer Rob Smedley's "Fernando is faster than you" message — and Ferrari were fined $100,000 for the team order. He ended 2010 sixth. The 2011, 2012 and 2013 seasons brought intermittent results, repeated collisions with Hamilton in 2011, and two near-identical crashes at Monaco in 2013 traced to suspension failure. Massa confirmed in September 2013 that he would leave Ferrari, replaced by Räikkönen, having contributed to two World Constructors' Championships.
Massa partnered Valtteri Bottas at Williams from 2014. After an unlucky start he took his first pole position in six years at the Austrian Grand Prix, and scored podiums at the Italian, Brazilian and Abu Dhabi rounds. In 2015 he took podiums at the Austrian and Italian Grands Prix — the latter his fortieth career podium — and finished sixth in the standings. He announced retirement on 1 September 2016, ending an emotional final home race with a crash at Interlagos. After Nico Rosberg's abrupt retirement moved Bottas to Mercedes, Massa rejoined Williams for 2017, scoring regular points, including a strong run at Azerbaijan curtailed by a broken rear damper. He announced his retirement a second time on 4 November 2017 and finished seventh at his final Brazilian Grand Prix, having achieved 11 wins, 16 pole positions, 15 fastest laps and 41 podiums in Formula One.
Massa raced in Formula E for Venturi from the 2018–19 season through 2019–20, then declined his contract option and left the series. He participated in the Porsche Carrera Cup Brasil endurance series in 2020 alongside Lico Kaesemodel, finishing third. He returned to Brazil to compete full-time in the Stock Car Pro Series, taking his first race win since the 2008 Formula One finale at Cascavel during the 2023 season. He hosted the charity kart race Desafio Internacional das Estrelas annually between 2005 and 2014, was president of the Commission Internationale de Karting from December 2017 to 2022, and then became president of the FIA Drivers' Commission.
In March 2023, former Formula One Group chief executive Bernie Ecclestone was quoted saying that he and then-FIA president Max Mosley were aware during the 2008 season of Renault's deliberate manipulation of the Singapore Grand Prix, and that under the statutes the race should have been cancelled, in which case Massa rather than Hamilton would have become champion; he said they decided not to act to protect the sport from scandal. Following these comments, Massa began investigating legal action and started proceedings against the FIA and FOM in 2023, leading to a trial scheduled for 2026.
Massa married Anna Raffaela Bassi on 30 November 2007 in São Paulo; their son Felipinho was born on 30 November 2009. He is a friend of watchmaker Richard Mille, who dedicated several watch models to him, and is managed by Nicolas Todt, son of former Ferrari team principal and FIA president Jean Todt. He supports São Paulo FC and the Turkish club Fenerbahçe, and has a strong Catholic faith.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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