page_title: Felipe Massa
section_title: 2017
hierarchical_section_title: Felipe Massa / Formula One career / Williams (2014–2017) / 2017
caption_attribution_description: English: Formula One 2017 Catalonia test (27 February-2 March): Felipe Massa (Williams)
context_page_description: Felipe Massa is a Brazilian former racing driver. He competed in 15 seasons of Formula One between 2002 and 2017, where he scored 11 Grand Prix victories, 41 podiums and finished as championship runner-up in 2008.
  Massa started his career in go-karting from the age of eight continuing in national and regional championships for seven years. He moved into Formula Chevrolet and claimed the championship. He moved in Italian Formula Renault in 2000 and won the title along with the European championship. Massa went into Euro Formula 3000 taking the championship in 2001.
  Massa started his Formula One career with Sauber before joining Scuderia Ferrari as a test driver for 2003. He returned to Sauber for 2004 and 2005 before rejoining Ferrari where he won two races in 2006 including his home Grand Prix becoming the first Brazilian since Ayrton Senna to win the Brazilian Grand Prix. Massa won three races in 2007, finishing 4th in the Drivers' Championship. He finished second in the 2008 Drivers' World Championship after a long title battle with Lewis Hamilton, winning six races to Hamilton's five.
context_section_description: On 16 January 2017, Massa rejoined Williams after Valtteri Bottas signed with Mercedes. In the first race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix, Massa qualified in seventh and finished in sixth. In China, he qualified in sixth. In the race, he struggled with the changing conditions to finish in 14th. Next, in Bahrain, Massa qualified in eighth and finished a strong sixth. In Russia, he qualified in sixth. In the race, he suffered 2 punctures and finished in ninth. Moving on to Spain, Massa qualified in ninth. In the race, he made a good start but made contact with McLaren driver Fernando Alonso and suffered a puncture. As a result, he finished out of the points, in 13th. In Monaco, Massa qualified only in 15th, as he was caught by yellow flags caused by Stoffel Vandoorne. In the race, he kept out of trouble to finish in ninth, collecting 2 points.
  In Montreal, Massa qualified a solid 7th. His race was short lived, as he was taken out by a spinning Carlos Sainz Jr. at turn 3.
  Two weeks later in Azerbaijan, Massa qualified in 9th behind his teammate Lance Stroll for the first time that season and ahead of the eventual race winner Daniel Ricciardo. In the race, Massa had a good start, avoiding the turn 2 collision between Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas, climbing up to sixth. Massa showed good pace throughout the race and managed to climb up to third passing both Kimi Räikkönen and Sergio Pérez during the safety car restarts and almost pulled off a sublime move on Sebastian Vettel for second place, before the race was red-flagged due to large amounts of debris around the track. When the race restarted, Massa suffered from broken rear damper and had to retire from the race on lap 25. A race many people believed Massa could have won. 
  Massa recovered well at the next two races in Austria and Britain to finish both races in the points with a 9th and 10th-place finish respectively.
  After missing the Hungarian Grand Prix due to illness, Massa returned for the Belgian Grand Prix to claim 8th place, a result he then repeated in Italy one week later. Poor strategy calls in Singapore left Massa languishing in 11th place by the finish. Points were to come at the next 3 races for Massa as he finished 9th in Malaysia, 10th in Japan and 9th in the United States Grand Prix.
  On 4 November he announced for the second time that he would retire from Formula One, at the end of the 2017 season.
  At the Brazilian Grand Prix, his home race, he finished a strong 7th after overtaking Fernando Alonso on the fifth lap for 5th place but lost out to Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton who were coming through the field.
  2017 was a difficult year for Williams as a whole due to a lack of downforce (affecting tyre wear to an extent) from the car in addition to poor wet weather drivability as shown in races such as China where Massa started 6th but finished outside of the points. Williams began with a superior car to the midfield teams such as Force India but fell behind in the development race midseason.
caption: Massa during pre-season testing for Williams in 2017
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 7D Mark II", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6.9 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2017:03:22 22:51:44", "Image ExifOffset": "214", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "866", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10408", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:02:28 00:23:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:02:28 00:23:18", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1120723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Partial", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "400", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "86", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "79937569/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "79937569/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "041021010899", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[100, 400, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "2600004487"}