The Brazilian is heading into his home race at Interlagos next weekend as the only rival to Lewis Hamilton for the crown - after a season in which he has emerged as Ferrari's leading driver.
But despite his success, Massa admits it is still hard work to erase the reputation of a 'wild guy' which he earned during a crash-filled debut season with Sauber in 2002. However, he says winning over the doubters is giving him intense satisfaction.
"I think when you show people something that they don't believe, it's even more nice for you," said Massa in a group interview ahead of the season finale in Brazil.
"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.
"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."
Massa thinks that his debut in F1 came too early - and his errors came from trying too hard to follow in the footsteps of Kimi Raikkonen.
"I was a little bit of a wild guy, it's true," he said. "But I had a very difficult car to drive. I was very young - maybe too young to start straight away.
"Sauber had the best year in 2001 with Kimi and Nick. I came in the next year and they expected me to do exactly the same as Kimi did, but the car was not as good as it was the previous season. So I tried too much.
"I made some good results, scored some good points and made some good races. 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."
Massa believes the progress he has made during the past few seasons at Ferrari is simply the result of being more experienced.
"Even when you have a difficult car to drive, if you know how to set up the car and how to work with the team, then you know how to have a comfortable car to drive," he said.
"If you have a car that doesn't match with your driving style it's very difficult and very easy to make mistakes when you drive all the time at the limit. With experience I started to learn what I needed and how I wanted the car, and how to work with the team.
"A big part of the learning (for me was) as a Ferrari test driver. That year was like a university for me. Michael (Schumacher) was like the professor and I learned a lot from him, about how to grow inside the team and work with them better.
"To say what you want and to push hard in every area. I learned a lot from him but never tried to be more than him because you cannot. I just tried to learn a lot and wait for my time, and my time is coming a little bit now and I'm quite happy for that."
Massa has the chance of clinching the world championship on home soil – and is well aware that the unpredictable events of this year mean neither he nor Hamilton can take anything for granted about how the Brazilian GP will turn out.
"I hope it will be quite a good deal," he said. "I think it is just a great feeling to first of all be in the position to fight for the world championship, to be in my home race, so I think that is really nice feeling.
"But we have had (races like) Hungary and Singapore this year – and we had many races where unfortunately we could not score. But that is racing, and until the last lap you never know what is going to happen.
"You drive a car where everything is on the limit to be at the maximum performance, but to finish the race as well. Sometimes things don't work like that, and it is racing. It won't be the first time and it won't be the last time, but you learn a lot with these bad results."
And Massa sees no reason why he should look to a future outside of Ferrari now that he is achieving great success.
"I think you can never have a clear idea what is going to happen in three or four years, but for the next two years I feel very good in the team. I hope everything stays like that, and I don't see any reason to change.
"I am comfortable and happy. I think in life the most important thing is to be happy and if you are happy then your job comes more natural."
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