From the Pulpit

"Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people." So wrote the 19th century American author, editor, poet and diplomat James Russell Lowell - and I like what he wrote.

When analysing the hopes, fears and antics of Formula One stars, I try to remember good ol' JRL. For, though they may be megastars, and (usually) mega-rich with it, and though their lives may be very far from normal (how could they be?), underneath it all they are flesh and blood. A teeming constellation of fizzing cells, the same as you and me.

And, as such, they are subject to the same hopes, fears and insecurities as we are. They make the same kind of mistakes, for the same kinds of reasons. They worry like we do. They lie. They cry.

So, as we look forward to the 2005 Brazilian Grand Prix, let us turn our attention to... Felipe Massa.

As you read these words, Felipe will be a jumble of emotions. He will be at his family home, or perhaps a swanky apartment (recently bought), for he was born in Sao Paulo - and, like all Paulistas, he's intensely patriotic about his city and likes to winter there (testing commitments permitting).

Being at home will make him more nervous than usual, of course, not less. Well, think about it. Why - how? - could a race in, say, a drearily drizzly one-horse Belgian townlet, attended by no-one he knows or cares about, be anything like as daunting as having to strut your white-knuckle stuff in front of everyone he's ever known and loved? How could being roared at by baying crowds every waking minute not set his nerves a-jangle? How would you feel?

And, this year, Felipe will be feeling an extra frisson, though he may not articulate it. This race will be the last of his half-century of 'innocent' Grands Prix. Oh yes: Brazilian race crowds are always knowledgeable, and his home posse will know that he's a soon-to-be Ferrari driver. To put it bluntly, he's now one of the biggest stars in the world in which he grew up. And he's still only 24.

And, as he leaves Interlagos on Sunday night, having scored points or not, having shunted or not, having enjoyed his race or not, he will be thinking something along the lines of, "Well, this time next year..."

Like all world-class sportsmen, he will be outwardly confident about next year, so it will appear as a largely happy thought. Any Grand Prix driver who doesn't think he's as quick as - or quicker than - all the others has no place being in racing's premier league, and Felipe passes muster in that regard.

Like the Champion he thinks he is, he swaggers around the paddocks of the world, looking every inch the racing driver from central casting (to borrow one of my Autosport-Atlas colleague Nigel 'the Buck' Roebuck's most enduringly evocative 'Buck-isms'). But that isn't a criticism of Felipe; he's right to think that way, and it's right that his body language should echo that. Faint heart may have won plenty of fair ladies, but it never won a Grand Prix.

So... how good will 2006 be for Felipe? That, of course, is a mighty hard question to answer. What do we really know about him? He came to F1 in 2002 from Euro 3000 (not Formula 3000, but its mainly Italian poor relation), landing up at Sauber, where and when he failed to cut the mustard. So much so, in fact, that Peter Sauber fired him - and made no bones about the reason why. Felipe was quick, granted, but he had wrecked too many C21 monocoques - too many for the naturally-conservative and unspectacularly-resourced Swiss team, at any rate. For 2003 they preferred to bank on the comfy if often unremarkable performances of two old Sauber hands: Nick Heidfeld and Heinz-Harald Frentzen (remember him?).

In 2004 Sauber took Felipe back, though, because his manager Jean (oops, sorry, Nicolas) Todt strongly urged his engine-customer team to do exactly that. (Well, that wasn't the official version, but if you genuinely think the commercial/political realities of the situation had no bearing on Felipe's sudden Sauber rehabilitation then you really weren't paying attention at school. Sorry, but get real, pur-lease.)

Felipe's teammate was Giancarlo Fisichella, who shaded him - as expected. And this year his teammate has been Jacques Villeneuve, whom he has shaded - also as expected.

But none of this is very conclusive, as evidence goes. Felipe has never done anything wondrously good or execrably bad. He's a lot more dependable than he was in 2002, of course - but, these days, very few drivers remain, after a few seasons in F1, quite as banzai as they started out in it - partly as a result of the many, many thousands of race and testing miles they now do. (Takuma Sato is the obvious exception that proves that particular rule, of course.)

No, Felipe is no longer inexperienced; Interlagos 2005 will be his 50th Grand Prix - which is just one short of the great Juan Manuel Fangio's career total, during which he was able to notch up five World Championships.

So there will be pressure on for Felipe next year - and plenty of it. But that's not the half of it, I'm afraid. He has been signed by the Scuderia for 2006 only - and already there's talk of not only Kimi Raikkonen but also Valentino Rossi driving red cars in 2007. And, while we're about it, Michael Schumacher hasn't yet formally decided that next year will be his last (thought we all think it probably will be). Four into two won't go. Neither will three. In other words, Felipe is going to have to do something pretty special to stay at Ferrari for more than one year, and he knows it. That's pressure.

Remember that as you watch car number-12 this weekend, whatever it does. Remember Felipe's hopes - and, more important, his fears. Remember how keen, perhaps too keen, he'll be to impress his rapidly-expanding domestic fan base ("Rubinho? Who he now?" the thousands may chant, only in Portuguese).

If you catch yourself taking for granted the neat way Felipe's pretty car swoops past a Red Bull or a Jordan or (dare I say it?) perhaps even a Williams or two... or if you bellow a series of scornful oaths at your TV screen should it skate across the Interlagos gravel here and there... remember that there's a little bloke in there, and that he's scared.

Not scared of Subida do Lago or Bico de Pato or even the daunting Mergulho ("the most daunting corner in F1", according to Allan McNish), or any of Interlagos's other majestic turns - for he wasn't scared of Eau Rouge or Pouhon or Blanchimont two weeks ago, not even in the wet. No, this weekend he'll be scared of the enormity of the occasion - and of the future. And he is right to be.

F1 Racing season preview edition (the March 2002 issue, to be precise) should be a feature that revealed the views of two recently-retired Grand Prix stars, Damon Hill and Jean Alesi. Over some very good wines, courtesy of the F1 paddock's favoured wine merchants (Corney & Barrow, if you must know), we talked through the season ahead, team by team. When we got to Sauber, Damon had to admit he hadn't seen "this Masso lad" race - why would he have? - and therefore had little to say.

Jean, however, perhaps emboldened by a glass or four of something deeply red and even more deeply expensive, began to wax lyrical. "I think he's a future Champion," he said. "I've watched him testing at Mugello - and he's mad, fast and clever."

"Formula One needs guys who are mad, fast and clever," chuckled Damon. "I love that!"

We all do. So I wish you good luck, Felipe. You'll need it. After all, whatever Alesi says, you're dreadfully like other people.

Jean was pissed, after all.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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