Ferrari's Felipe Massa looking for a brighter finish this season

For a few euphoric seconds last November, Ferrari's Felipe Massa had the Formula One championship tantalizingly within his grasp before it was cruelly snatched away.

The Brazilian won plenty of respect and sympathy for the heartbreak and the way he handled it but this season he wants to win the bigger prize.

The 27-year-old starts the new campaign in Australia next week as many people's sentimental favourite to take the final step and become his country's first Formula One world champion since the late Ayrton Senna in 1991.

Massa won more races than McLaren's Lewis Hamilton in 2008, but missed out by a single point after a cliffhanger final race in Brazil that saw the Briton gain the place he needed on the last corner of the last lap.

Shedding tears of frustration after taking a commanding victory in the race but still ending up a loser, Massa showed true sportsmanship on a day that will be forever seared into his memory. "We need to congratulate Lewis because he did a great championship and he scored more points than us, so he deserves to be champion," Massa said. "I know how to lose and I know how to win."

Then he went out and drowned his sorrows.

There was a feeling then that Hamilton, Formula One's youngest ever champion, deserved the crown because he had missed out by the same margin to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen in 2007. If that is the case, then Massa is due his reward in 2009. Massa won six races to Hamilton's five, although the tally would have been reversed had the McLaren driver not been stripped of his Belgian Grand Prix victory for an illegal overtaking manoeuvre.

Melbourne will be a fresh start, although the Brazilian has had problems there for the last few years. In 2008 he failed to finish and the year before started at the back of the grid after problems in qualifying.

This year, with Ferrari looking strong in pre-season testing while McLaren struggles to get their car up to speed, might just be different.

"Some things are just written," said Massa.